


Highway to Hell

by Galen_Wordwyrm



Series: Scooby Falls [3]
Category: Ben 10 Series, Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Scooby Doo - All Media Types, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (Cartoon 2010)
Genre: Character Study, Conversations, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, F/M, cross dimensional travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galen_Wordwyrm/pseuds/Galen_Wordwyrm
Summary: Going to hell in a Rust-bucket
Relationships: Velma Dinkley/Marcie "Hot Dog Water" Fleach, Wendy Corduroy/Danny Fenton
Series: Scooby Falls [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862383
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cryptolonium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptolonium/gifts).



A sullen warm breeze barely stirred the air on the dusty street of the restored Oregon pioneer town. Two youngsters, a slightly taller red-headed girl in a blue Henley shirt and white capris, and a brunette boy in a white t-shirt with a black stripe and brown cargo pants wandered the near-deserted streets, looking through window displays, entering one building or another to see if there was any tourist merchandise or interesting books for sale. Both of them had brilliant green eyes that spoke of a family resemblance.

“I know this is supposed to be a road trip, but does grandpa have to stop at every tourist trap we stumble across?”, the boy complained.

“Until you’re old enough to learn to how drive, dweeb, things aren’t likely to change.”

“It’s too hot, and I’m too tired to fight with you, Gwen.”

“Yeah, well, grandpa has the keys to the RV, so we have to find something to drink and some shade until he's ready to leave.”

The youth groaned in aggravation. “Fine. Just none of that disgusting fruit flavored water you’ve been guzzling. I want a slushy.”

A restored eatery beckoned. “They probably have something in there, Ben.”

A few minutes later, the two kids sat on a narrow plank bench in a meagre sliver of shade provided by the building, paper cups of raspberry vinaigrette cordial in hand. Gwen sipped hers in appreciation, while her cousin had consumed most of his in three heaving gulps driven by thirst, grimacing at the slight bitter taste.

“People actually chose to drink this stuff back then?”, he complained.

“The cola they sold back then had cocaine in it, and you’re enough of a maniac with just caffeine in your system”, Gwen said.

“Hey, you two! How are you enjoying the pioneer village?”

“It’s okay, Grandpa Max", Gwen told the heavy-set older man with the greying crew cut, bedecked in a loud Hawaiian shirt. 

Ben tucked his hands behind his head. “Now I know why the Donner Party chose to become cannibals. It was faster than dying of boredom”

Max was unimpressed. “That was California, Ben.” 

Ben shrugged. “I’m on vacation, not a field trip. I just wish some action would give me an excuse to go alien.”

“That can be arranged, Benjamin”, deep male voice hissed from all around them. “But I’m afraid you won’t have time to transform.”

Ben leapt to his feet, fingers dialing the Omnitrix to select an alien to become. The bezel didn’t pop up to complete the sequence as it usually did. Ben glanced at the extraterrestrial device on his left wrist. It’s display shone a bright violet instead of the usual brilliant emerald. “Not good!”

Incandescent purple energy writhed like captured lightning, and a portal stared to tear open in the fabric of reality. “Time's up, Ben”, the pasty faced figure in dark violet armor said threateningly. “Third time is the charm, as the saying goes. I just had to come back far enough to stop you, before I made my second attempt to rule all of creation.”

A brilliant bolt of scarlet energy lanced the menacing figure, knocking him aside. Ben, Gwen, and Max all stared at a second violet framed energy portal that had opened, and a slim red-haired young woman in a blue plaid mini-skirt and a white t-shirt with a cat emblem on it, wearing blue framed glasses stood just on their side of the portal, holding an Organization energy staff. She looked hauntingly familiar for some reason.

“Run! All of you! Get away as fast as you can!”, she ordered, triggering a second lance of red energy. “That’s Eon, and you can’t fight him right now, Ben, you’re not experienced enough!”

“What’s going on?”, Gwen demanded. “Who are you?”

A third blast of crimson. “I’m you! Or I will be. But only if you run, right now!”

Max grabbed Ben and Gwen, hustling them towards their RV as the few other tourists in the pioneer village ran for their lives. Fumbling with the lock cost them precious seconds as scarlet and violet lightning exchanged volleys in the town, shattering buildings. An expanding shockwave of violet-white light erupted as Max cleared the gate, flooring the accelerator as he made a desperate right hand turn uphill onto the winding mountain road. The pioneer village disappeared as though it had never existed.

Ben was strapped into the passenger seat, and Gwen clung to the couch in the back, staring out the rear window, fear etching her features. Had she just witnessed her own death? In the distance behind them, a small dark figure rode arcs of violet energy as he flew in pursuit.

“Hey, grandpa!”, Gwen yelled. “Pedal faster! He’s gaining!” 

Max stood on the gas pedal, the powerful modified RV engine howling as they sped up the curving mountain road. Flickering bolts of purple started reaching out for them. Ben yelped when see saw one age a mature tree into dust.

“Can’t this rolling junk heap go any faster?”, Gwen pleaded.

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?!”, Ben snapped at her.

“You didn’t just see yourself die!”, she screamed at Ben.

“Both of you shut up!”, Grandpa Max commanded, steering an evasive course. “Ben, what’s your watch doing?”

A glance at his wrist wasn’t heartening. “A whole lot of nothing, Grandpa”, he reported.

“Gwen, it’s up to you to shield us, or we are literally history", Max called. 

Gwen thought frantically. ‘Time' was ‘tempus' or ‘tempore' in Latin. ‘Escape' was ‘fugit' or ‘fugitivo'. ‘Home' was ‘haven'. She thought. No time (hah!) to worry about tenses. She cast the improvised spell at the precise instant one of Eon's temporal energy bolts struck them. A searing, ripping, erasing sensation…

And that highway was empty.

*-*-*

An eternal instant of unbearable awareness-filled non-existence, and the RV slammed onto the highway with all six wheels, the trans-axle grinding in protest. Max braked hard, alert for any traffic that might collide with them.

“Good girl, Gwen! Great job!”, Max commended her. Silence from the rear of the RV.

“Uh, Grandpa? What happened? Why did it get so dark all of a sudden?”, Ben observed. 

“You’re right Ben. My watch says it’s not much after one in the afternoon.” The grinding from the trans-axle was getting worse. “Go check on your cousin.”

Ben released his seatbelt, and braced himself as he made his way to the rear compartment. Gwen was lying on the floor, motionless save for the swaying of the RV. “Hey! Gwen, wake up!”

“Go ‘way”, she swatted feebly at Ben as he helped her sit up. “I’m okay.”

“Don’t scare us like that.”

“Oh, my head", Gwen complained.

“I didn’t think it was thin enough for you to get brain damage", Ben smirked.

“Bug off, dweeb. Light hurts to look at, okay?” Gwen crawled to stand, using RV fixtures to brace herself. “I guess we survived. For now.”

“You got to play hero, Gwen”, Ben pointed out. “Why the long face?”

“Weren’t you listening?”, she demanded. “I just saw myself get snuffed like a cheap birthday candle!”

“If you two are done bickering at each other, we have a town coming up. I think we'll just make it. If we’re lucky.”

en resumed his place in the passenger seat, Gwen gripping the chair uprights, standing between them.

“Where the heck is ‘Gravity Falls’?”, Ben asked.

“Visit the World Famous ‘Mystery Shack’”, Gwen read a sign as they limped down a long hill into the small town. The sun was setting, the day of August 21st drawing to a close. 

*-*-*

Six weeks previous…

Violet-white arcing bolts of energy ripped open a gap between dimensions and spat a limp female form into the access behind Greasy's Diner. The valley was almost silent, if you ignored howling dogs and a deep thrumming more felt than heard. In the woods outside town, a pale pillar of blue-white light speared high into the dark night sky. Not a light could be seen in town.

The young woman rolled over on her back with a groan as the town's power came back on. She'd failed. Choking back a sob, she sat up, wiping away a tear, looking around after adjusting her glasses. She had no idea where she was, other than behind a restaurant. 

In the dim light spilling from the kitchen windows, she checked the hip pocket in her mini-skirt, finding her phone had suffered a cracked screen in her fall, and less than thirty dollars in cash, plus her I.D. It would have to do for the moment.

She made her way to the front door and entered. Taking a seat at the counter, she ordered a sandwich. The grey-haired waitress with a lazy eye looked at her sympathetically. “You alright, dearie?”

“I guess. My…ride, I guess you'd say dumped me and took off. Where am I?” 

“You’re at Greasy's, in Gravity Falls. Do you need to call someone to come and get you?” 

The young woman sighed. “My family are all gone. So, no, no-one to call.” She nibbled at the sandwich, the grim reality robbing her of her appetite. “Looks like I’m going to be stuck here for a while. Know anybody who’s hiring?”

“How old are you?”

No use in lying. “Sixteen.”

“I can always use another evening shift waitress, and move Melody to mornings", the older woman offered. “Minimum wage you understand, and you buy your own uniform. I’m Susan. Welcome aboard…?”

The young woman nodded. “Lynn”, she introduced herself, shaking Susan’s hand. “I can start tomorrow night.” 

*-*-*

Now. August 21st.

“Hey Susan, I’m here”, the ginger-haired evening shift waitress announced as she arrived at work. “Any specials I need to know about?”

“Just the usual”, Susan said as she closed the till and retrieved her purse. “Have a good night, Lynn.”

Gwendolyn, now ‘Lynn’ Tennyson went about her duties, tending to the few customers in the diner. Things had been quiet since the disaster at Northwest Manor. She looked up, out the window as a mechanical rattling, grinding sound muffled by distance and window glass caught her attention.

The half-full coffee carafe she had been holding fell to the floor and shattered.

Her grandfather's 1973 GMC Royale Motorhome, still festooned with satellite dishes, and lovingly called ‘Rust Bucket’, rolled down the street.


	2. Chapter 2

Max Tennyson, grandfather and retired Plumber, coaxed the damaged twenty-six foot long 1973 GMC Royale Motorhome affectionately known as ‘Rust-bucket' to a shuddering, gear-protesting halt at the curb near the Twin Bed Motel in the small mountain town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, sighing in relief and annoyance. This was not going to be cheap. “Damn it", he muttered quietly, staring out the windshield.

“You two stay in the RV until I’m done signing us in. You might as well grab your bags, as were going to be here for at least a couple of days”, Max told his grandchildren. “Gwen, you are hereby authorized to sit on Ben if he tries to leave before I get back.” Ben crossed his arms, annoyed his plan to explore had been defeated so easily. “Both of you behave.”

Max crossed the parking lot to the motel office and completed the process to rent a room for two nights, with the option to extend their stay if they needed to.

Twenty minutes later, the Tennysons were settling into their temporary lodgings with minimal fuss. Gwen was uncharacteristically quiet. Ben attempted to bait her by reading out the titles of various shows available on the motel cable television, but soon gave up in favor of finding something to watch.

“I’ll see what I can find for takeout”, Max announced. 

“No rush, grandpa", Gwen said. “I’m not really hungry. I’ll probably take a shower and go to bed.”

“Ben?”

“I’ll hit the kitchen in Rust-bucket if I get desperate", Ben told him without looking away from the ‘B' movie he'd found to watch. 

Max tossed Ben the spare door key to the motorhome. “Be sure to lock up.” A black-haired young man was unlocking the room next door, looking tired and grimy. Max nodded at the youth politely, who waved in turn. 

“Say, you wouldn’t know a place in town to grab a meal?”, Max inquired.

“Most people go to Greasy's or Yumberjacks. If you’re feeling adventurous, give the tavern next door to the Gossiper a try. Tell Vaggie I said hi”, was the response.

Max quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t look old enough to go into that kind of establishment.”

“I’m not. It was an accident, and Vaggie told me to get gone. I went.” The youth opened his motel room door. “Have a good night.”

“You too." 

Max stepped into the motel office and got directions around town. A moderate walk had him opening the door to the tavern a short time later. The interior was not as dismal as he had been expecting, but still had subdued lighting, and was sparsely populated. He looked around, and decided to sit at the bar.

A striking dusky-skinned petite woman with knee-length white hair tied back with a large red bow approached him from the staff side of the bar. Max noticed the eye patch over her left eye, almost hidden by a sweep of white bangs. “What'll you have?” 

Max studied the chalkboard menu. “What on earth is a ‘Dinkley Special’?”

“House drink. Two shots of Black Pony in dark German lager”, the attractive white-haired bartender explained. “Drink two in ten minutes you get a free t-shirt. Fail to finish even one, your picture goes on the Wall of Shame.” She grinned, pointing at a display with more than fifty Polaroid pictures on it.

“I think I’ll pass. Just a beer. Do you serve food here?”

“I can make you an enchilada", she offered. 

“I’d take Vaggie up on that offer, were I you, friend", a rumpled man said as he seated himself at the bar, taking off a battered straw hat. “Carl Kolchak", he introduced himself.

“Max Tennyson.” They shook hands. Carl accepted a beer from Vaggie.

“You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a decent mechanic in town?”, Max inquired.

“Do want competent or ethical?” Carl sipped at his beer.

“Both preferably.”

Vaggie snickered. “Avoid Bud Gleeful then. He’s neither.”

“I’ll give you the phone number of my guy. He’s looking after my Mustang and a friend’s van”, Carl offered. 

“Accident?”

“Vengeful ghost", Vaggie volunteered.

“Excuse me?”, Max said.

Vaggie put an enchilada on a plate in front of each man, and plated a third for herself. “What? I’m hungry.” Max caught a glint of small sharp teeth in her mouth.

Max was about to ask where Vaggie was from when the entire room lurched, and a long-buried memory told him local gravity no longer applied. Caught off guard as several other patrons in the bar were, he floated helplessly toward the ceiling, noting Carl had braced himself against the brass foot rail and the bar, and Vaggie simply gripped the edge of the bar like grim death, looking mildly annoyed. 

*-*-*

Gwen sighed. “I’m going to take a shower.” 

Ben didn’t even look away from the cheap movie he was watching. “Suits me. Don’t stink up the place.” Gwen stuck her tongue out at him and retrieved her sleepwear from her bag. 

Locking the bathroom door, she stripped out of her street clothes and started the shower, waiting while the pipes stopped rattling and the water ran warm before stepping under the spray. Grabbing the soap, she scrubbed down, rinsing away the sweat and grime of the day.

The vision of the expanding bubble of violet-white energy consuming the pioneer village haunted her. Did it, would it hurt when she died? Or would it be like flipping a switch? 

“Six years. I only get six more years.” Gwen whispered, choking out a sob. “It’s not fair.” She wrapped her arms around herself, tears mingling with the shower spray. “I’ll never have a boyfriend, or get married…” She slid down the wall, curling up on the floor of the tub, one fist thumping in frustration. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair", she sobbed, eyes clenched.

A wrenching, stomach flipping sensation, like cresting a roller-coaster. Gwen lifted from the floor of the tub, startled, flailing, weightless. “BEN!”, she screamed. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

*-*-*

Ben Tennyson was bored. When he got bored, he’d poke at the alien device that had clamped itself to his wrist. This usually created problems, but then he wasn’t bored. He figured it was an even trade.

The watch face still glowed purple. Ben twisted the bezel, observing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Every setting he tried showing blank purple. One more turn…yes! Green! And a silhouette he recognized! Not his favorite perhaps, but he could prank Gwen with it! 

Ben crowed as the bezel popped up. “Payback time!”

Before he could activate the Omnitrix, the entire room lurched, and Ben, both beds mattresses, and their luggage, but not the dresser or television, levitated without warning. “It’s not my fault!”, he yelled reflexively. 

*-*-*

Velma Dinkley and Marcie Fleach snuggled under the covers in bed, slightly flushed and enjoying the afterglow.

“That was nice", murmured Marcie, cuddled next to her girlfriend. Velma idly stoked Marcie's hair.

Velma smiled, gazing at Marcie's violet eyes. “Wanna see what’s on the tube?”

“It’s an LCD flatscreen", Marcie noted pedantically. “Try the bad ‘B' movie channel. It always good for a laugh—Aaah!”, she yelped as she and Velma suddenly lifted off from the bed.

“Jinkies!”, Velma cried, clinging to Marcie. “This isn’t what meant when I said I felt the earth move!”

*-*-*

“Whoa!”, Lynn Tennyson barked as she floated up off the floor, legs kicking, one hand trying to keep her uniform skirt from drifting up, exposing her. Stacks of dishes lifted into the air, coffee cups drifting, a shapeless, shifting blob of steaming coffee floating in mid air. A cursing cry of pain as Alex the short-order cook grabbed or touched something hot in the kitchen.

*-*-*

Danny Fenton heard his phone chime twice as he relaxed in his motel room, two tones indicating different sources for incoming messages. 

Activating the device, he opened the first text to see a picture of his sister Jazz and her girlfriend Sam at a concert. The second was a picture from Wendy, in a black tank top with a white wolf printed on it. ‘Miss you' was the accompanying message.

He felt a sudden nausea-inducing chill, a shadow of the one he’d felt the day he’d become a freak half-ghost, and an unpleasant weightlessness. Ectoplasmic vapor spilled from him and he went ghost, the bed mattress lifting free of the bed frame as he passed through it.

Flying while a phantasm was becoming second nature to him. He gained control, oriented himself, and flew through the wall out to the parking lot.

Chaos greeted him.

Cars, trucks, and anything not attached had started drifting skyward. 

Everything except an ordinary looking vintage recreational vehicle, which remained stubbornly flightless.

“Now that’s something you don’t see everyday", Danny observed. He flew down and anchored his toe under the vehicle, becoming human long enough to pocket his mobile, and became a ghost again just as scream came from the room next to his.

*-*-*

Ben slapped the bezel down, and a flash of rippling green energy transformed him into Ghostfreak. Turning intangible he phased through the wall just in time to catch Gwen as gravity reinstated itself . “Gotcha!”, he cheered.

Gwen screamed, mostly in embarrassment as Ben in his transformed state put her down. Outside, they could hear large objects crashing to the ground, and inside, the mattresses tumbling to the floor. 

“I better go see what’s happening”, Ghostfreak/Ben rasped, turning intangible again.

“Lights out!” Something, someone punched Ghostfreak/Ben back into the motel room proper.

Ghostfreak/Ben spun in mid-air to confront his opponent, single purple eye tracking to see a white haired youth in black. “Oh, you want to play rough, Casper?”

“The name is Danny Phantom. And you're going to leave the girl alone.” That was all the warning Ghostfreak/Ben got before lances of pale blue-green ectoplasmic force blasted him entirely through one room and into another. 

Two disheveled women, neither dressed, were tangled in bed sheets. The auburn one was curvaceous and buxom, shorter than the slender well-endowed violet-eyed brunette with dark wavy hair. Both stared at him, then screamed. 

“No, wait! I can explain--", Ghostfreak/Ben tried to calm them, clawed hands extended, when the spectral youth phased through the wall. The women screamed again.

“Danny! Get out of here!”, Velma yelled.

“Take your pervo friend with you!”, Marcie added. 

“Don’t mind me, ladies”, Danny reassured them. “I’m just taking out the trash!”

Ghostfreak/Ben suddenly understood this Danny character wasn’t going to hold back. He had to take this away from Gwen and the motel. “You’ve gotta catch me first, Casper!”, he taunted, launching himself to fly through the wall. He shot through three vacant disheveled rooms, then passed through the motel office behind the desk clerk, Will Schofield, who didn’t even look up from his glossy vacation brochure, ‘101 Completely Un-haunted Vacation Destinations’, phasing through the outer wall.

Danny hit Ghostfreak/Ben like a freight-train in a power-dive ‘death-from-above' strike that carved a five foot wide divot out of the lawn. “That’s for calling me ‘Casper’, freak show.” Two rapid, hard punches. “That’s for scaring my friends.” Danny gripped Ghostfreak/Ben’s tail, lifting and slamming him into the ground again. “That’s a warning!”

Ghostfreak/Ben was stunned, hurting. He lashed out with his concealed tentacles, trying to make Danny dodge away. One of his appendages scored Danny in the ribs, ripping his ectoplasmic form. “You talk too much!”

The pain and rage on Danny’s face promised vengeance. “Okay, the hard way it is.”

Pale green ectoplasmic lightning bolted from Danny's hands. Ghostfreak/Ben scrambled to escape, levitating a trash can at Danny, who batted it aside with his own psychokinetic energy. But it distracted him long enough to allow Ghostfreak/Ben to grapple Danny with his tentacles and fling his opponent into Rust-bucket with a resounding impact.

Danny barely had time to recover his wits, and met the charging grey horror halfway in mid-air. Ghostfreak/Ben howled as Danny shocked him with ectoplasmic lightning charging his grip, and Danny threw Ghostfreak/Ben into the RV in turn.

Scared, hurt, Ghostfreak/Ben played the hidden ace, tearing aside the concealing grey shroud that hid his true form. Previous enemies had fainted at the sight. 

Danny sneered. “I work retail. Try harder.”

Bolts of energy lashed Ghostfreak/Ben, who heard a cascade of descending beeps from the Omnitrix. “Oh no, not now!”

Green energy flared, and ten-year-old Ben Tennyson stood before a very surprised Danny Fenton.

“Don’t you hurt my cousin!”, a red-haired girl in an over-large t-shirt shrilled as she threw herself in between Danny and Ben. She glared at Danny.

A flare of soft white light, and Danny dropped about a foot, landing on his feet, human again. “Huh?!”, he said intelligently.

“Danny, what is going on?”, Velma demanded from behind, arms crossed. Marcie was with her, both of them had dressed hurriedly.

“The freakshow who barged into your room turned into this kid!”, Danny tried to explain.

“Ben, Grandpa Max told you to behave!", Gwen berated her cousin, turning on him. “That includes leaving the Omnitrix alone!”

“What’s an ‘Omnitrix', and how did it affect local gravitation?”, Marcie inquired.

“Gwen, do you know Danny can see your panties?”, Ben asked innocently.

Gwen suddenly realized she could feel a draft. Ben was right. She fell to her knees with a screech, pinning the hem of her t-shirt down with her hands. 

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!”, Max Tennyson thundered.


	3. Chapter 3

Max pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, then unlocked Rust-bucket’s door. “Everybody in.”

“Excuse me", Velma objected. “I don't know who you are, but you can’t just--"

“I said, ‘Everybody in.’ It wasn’t a suggestion.”

Ben and Gwen were the first through the door, then Danny, followed by Velma and Marcie, holding hands. Max closed the door behind him as he entered. He sat in the driver's seat, unlocked it, and swung it around to face the interior. “Young man, take the passenger seat and turn it around", Max instructed Danny. 

“Ben, Gwen, you sit next to the window at the dining table. Ladies, please join them”, Max suggested. “Comfortable?” Silent nods from all of them. 

“Good. May I have your names?”

Danny spoke up first. “Danny. Fenton.”

“I’m Velma Dinkley, and this is my girlfriend, Marcie Fleach”, Velma said.

“Max Tennyson. Now would someone mind explaining why I got a panicked phone call from my grand-daughter? Ben?” 

Ben stared at the table guiltily. “I’m sorry, Grandpa Max.”

“How many times have I told you not to use the Omnitrix without my supervision?”

“A lot”, Ben admitted morosely. Gwen looked worried.

“Let’s start at the beginning”, Grandpa Max started again. “I was about to enjoy what was probably a very nice enchilada, when I found myself floating toward the ceiling, along with almost everyone else in the ba…establishment. The next thing I know, I’m crashing to the floor, and Gwen calls me in a panic that Ben is in a fight.”

“I was in the shower just before I called you, Grandpa”, Gwen supplied. “I started floating too. Ben caught me when gravity decided to come back.”

“I was looking at the Omnitrix when everything went weird and Gwen freaked out. I went hero and changed into Ghostfreak", Ben admitted. “Next thing I know, this joker", he indicated Danny, “is attacking me.”

Danny let out a long-suffering sigh. “Long story short, I can turn into a ghost. I heard a girl, Gwen is it?” She nodded. “I heard Gwen scream, after everything -except- this RV started floating, I went to investigate and saw what I thought was another ghost attacking her. So I intervened. I’ve…I haven’t had a great track record of positive experiences with other ghosts. We started fighting. I didn’t know Ben was like me.” Danny picked at a hangnail, distracted, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Ben scoffed.

“That’s where we come in", Marcie said, adjusting her red rimmed glasses. “The gravitic anomaly probably affected the entire town, possibly the entire valley. Gravity Falls is a well known epicenter of paranormal activity. I would suggest we consult the local expert on such matters.”

“What Marcie left out is we were…relaxing…in our room when Danny and Ben made a rather unexpected appearance , immediately after gravity returned. You didn’t catch us at our best I’m afraid, Danny. I apologize.”

“’Sokay", Danny mumbled, blushing.

“He saw everything", Marcie deadpanned. “They both did.”

“I’d never spy on you, either of you”, Danny mumbled. 

“Velma told me what happened to you, Danny. I believe you”, Marcie nodded. “Besides, you have a girlfriend. Who we wouldn't hesitate to inform if you violated our privacy.“

Danny looked stricken. “Oh geez, Wendy!” He turned to Max, pleading. “I need to call my girlfriend and see if she’s okay!” 

Max nodded, and Danny exited the RV, phone in hand. 

“I think what we have here is a misunderstanding, made more complicated by extenuating circumstances”, Max said. “I think I should talk to this expert you mentioned. Where can I find them?”

Velma and Marcie looked at each other. “The Mystery Shack”, they said simultaneously.

“I’ll get Danny to ask Wendy to ask Leon Thompson for a lift in the morning if he’s available”, Velma said, getting up.

“Danny mentioned that this vehicle resisted the contra-gravitation event, Mister Tennyson. Why would that be?”, Marcie inquired. 

Max rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s…a long story.”

Danny and Velma returned from outside, saving Max from having to explain. “Leon can give us a ride. He seemed very enthusiastic for some reason, according to Wendy”, Velma informed them. “He'll pick us up at Yumberjacks around ten tomorrow morning.”

“I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night", Max said. “Why don’t we all try to get a good night’s sleep. Can anyone use a hand getting their rooms back in order?”

“If you’re offering, we won’t say no", Velma nodded. Half an hour’s effort soon had their rooms presentable, with mattresses repositioned on bed frames. Danny volunteered some towels to help mop up the bathroom in the Tennyson’s motel room.

Danny took a moment to pull Ben aside. “I feel like I should apologize, for jumping to conclusions. It’s been a weird summer.”

Ben shook hands. “It’s kinda neat to meet someone else who can change forms.” 

“I just get the one", Danny shrugged. 

“Glad to see you two burying the hatchet, Ben", Max congratulated them. “How’s your girlfriend, Danny?”

“A little freaked out. She was walking home from work and ended up stuck in a tree for a while.”

“Will you be joining us at the Mystery Shack tomorrow?”

Danny grinned. “Like I’d miss an opportunity to see Wendy. Goodnight, Max, Ben.”

Just before Danny let himself in to his room, he was stopped by Gwen, who'd darted out behind him.

“Um, hi. You didn’t actually…you know…?”, Gwen blushed slightly, bringing up the topic.

“That took guts, standing up for your cousin”, Danny grinned.

Gwen clenched her fists at her side. “That’s beside the point”, she whispered fiercely, frowning. “And you dodged the question.”

Danny leaned against the door frame. “If I say ‘yes', you’ll be embarrassed. If I say ‘no', you'll call me a liar, and still be embarrassed”, he explained. “So, I’m playing it smart and saying it doesn’t matter. You stood up for your cousin. And that’s what I saw.” He gave her a thumbs up. “Goodnight, Gwen.” He entered his motel room and she heard the lock engage.

Gwen turned to go back to her own motel room. ‘It would be so much easier to be mad at him if he wasn’t so cute’, she thought to herself.

“Everything alright, Gwen?”

“Yeah, Grandpa. I’m good.”

*-*-*

“Kids, we have a problem", Grandpa Max announced the next morning.

“What do you mean, Grandpa?” A hint of apprehension in Gwen’s voice.

Max sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Sit down.” Ben and Gwen perched on one of the beds. “I was watching the news while you two were getting ready. And I found out we didn’t lose just a few hours due to Eon yesterday. Ben, what year is it?”

“Two thousand and seven.”

“Gwen, who is the President?”

“Richardson?”

Max took a deep breath. “The year is twenty-twelve, and the President here is a man named Barrack Obama.”

“Two thousand and twelve?!”, Ben yipped. “Awesome! That means I’m fifteen!” 

“Wait", said Gwen. “If there’s a different President, that means…” She opened and booted up her laptop, hooking up to the motel WiFi network, keys clattering under fingers. “Holy… Ben, Grandpa’s right! We didn’t just move in time, we must have jumped timelines! Richardson never existed here!”

“So?”

“So that means, there’s already a fifteen year old you here, somewhere. And a fifteen year old me!” Gwen didn't know if she felt excited or scared. “And that means mom and dad…” She looked at her grandfather. “We're in trouble, aren’t we?”

Max nodded, just as someone knocked on the door. He peered through the peephole to see the distorted image of Velma outside. Opening the door, he smiled. “Good morning!”

“All ready?”, Velma asked.

“As we'll ever be. Come on you two. Breakfast calls”, Max said more calmly than he felt, pocketing the motel room key.

“I’m having pancakes!”, Ben announced. “Plain old smothered-in-syrup pancakes!”

“Lucky you", Marcie quipped as the group set out on the walk to Yumberjacks.

Velma noticed the change in Max’s mood from the previous day. “Someone seems pensive", she pointed out. 

“Hm? Oh. Yes", Max nodded. “You seem like a rational person, Miss Dinkley. Grounded.”

“Call me Velma. And I'd better be, after more than ten years of amateur sleuthing and a stint at NASA.”

Marcie smiled, holding Velma's hand, surreptitiously wiping away a tear. 

“What if…”, Max began, paused, then tried again. “What would you say to someone who claimed to come from an alternate reality?” 

Gwen eyed her grandfather with concern, while Ben chatted to Marcie as they walked. Velma hesitated before she replied.

“Before this summer, I would have been very suspicious of any such claim”, Velma replied. “Now?” Velma glanced at Marcie, the action not lost on the elder Tennyson. “Let’s just say I’m willing to consider such assertions with a grain of salt.”

Yumberjacks was busy enough the group had to wait for a table large enough for them. When seated, Ben did order pancakes, Velma indulged in eggs Benedict, while Marcie ordered a fruit plate, as did Gwen. Max settled for coffee and toast, saying he preferred his own cooking.

“So where are you from, Max?”, Marcie inquired.

“Bellwood. It’s about twenty miles from Grover’s Mill”, Max answered. “You?”

“Crystal Cove, California”, Marcie replied over the rim of her tea cup.

Ben glanced at Gwen. They could feel the edge of tension at the table.

“Both of you aren’t from around here", Velma commented dryly. “So you’ll fit in just fine. Marcie was here for at least a month before she was noticed.” Max regarded Marcie more closely.

Marcie touched Velma's hand to get her attention. “Leon’s here. I just saw his van.” Velma nodded.

When the bill was paid, Velma and Marcie and Max and the kids went to Thompson's van. “Thanks for the lift, Leon”, Velma nodded.

“Oh, anytime. You can ride shotgun if you want, Marcie”, Leon offered as they climbed in. She deferred to Max who took the front passenger seat instead.

The drive up to the Mystery Shack was quiet. Velma thought she spotted Leon looking in the rear view at Marcie, usually when the van hit a bump or dip in the road. The Mystery Shack soon loomed though the trees. Leon dropped them off and drove away.

The building looked in even worse shape than usual. Soos was up a ladder, making repairs. Velma led everyone into the gift shop. Wendy Corduroy was occupied with putting tourist merchandise back onto shelves and racks where it belonged. “Sorry, we're closed today”, she informed them without looking.

Danny went over and started giving her a hand. “Oh hey, man! I totally forgot you were coming today", Wendy said hugging him. “We had a bit of a shake up around here.”

Ben was poking about, examining the various knick-knacks and curios the Mystery Shack sold, showing some of them to Gwen. “Whoa! Check out this lifelike mannequin”, Ben said, looking over the figure dressed in a purple skirt and a dark pink sweater with a yellow shooting star on it.

“Hi! I’m Mabel!”, the ‘mannequin’ suddenly said. 

Ben yelped, stumbling backward, tripping and falling onto his hip and elbows. “It’s alive!”

“Way to make a first impression, doofus”, Gwen hooted sarcastically, grinning. Ben grumbled as he got up.

“That’s a neat kitty on your shirt", Mabel complimented. “It’s not everyday I meet a fellow fashionista. Your brother is funny.”

“I’m Gwen. The dweeb who fell over is my cousin Ben.”

“Pleased to meetcha", Mabel said. 

“What’s going on, Mabel?”, Dipper said as he entered the gift shop from though the door to the cabin. “Oh hey, who're your new friends?”

“Max Tennyson, meet the expert on local paranormal phenomena, Dipper Pines”, Velma said.

“Him?!”

“I’ma what-now?”, Dipper gaped.


	4. Chapter 4

Dipper Pines, twelve year old amateur paranormal investigator, felt more than a little intimidated and confused. Raising his hands palm out, he pleaded “Now hold on. I’m no expert. I just followed the clues in the journals written by my gruncle Ford.”

“Wait, I thought Stan was your great uncle", Wendy said, confused. 

“He is", Dipper explained. “His twin brother Stanford--"

“Pshh! Nobody cares about family history, Dipper”, Mabel interrupted. “Velma is probably here because of the gate thingy.”

“Mabel! Gruncle Ford said not to talk about the ate-gay!”, Dipper complained with gritted teeth.

“Don’t be silly, bro-bro. Velma was here when we knocked your girlfriend's undead ancestor into the bottomless pit, same as Wendy”, Mabel smiled cheekily as she minimized Dipper's objection.

“Pacifica Northwest is not my girlfriend", Dipper denied, cheeks reddening.

“Dipper, I thought I asked you to--", Stan Pines said as he entered the gift shop, then blinked when he saw the group. “Museum is closed today folks. No refunds.”

“We're not here to see your counterfeit cryptids, Stan", Velma announced, arms crossed, visibly annoyed. Marcie rested a hand on her shoulder in reassurance, hip cocked, daring Stan to argue.

“Oh great. Kolchak’s freakshow is here”, Stan grumbled, straight faced. “What the heck, come on in, meet my Poindexter brother, see his secret laboratory.”

“Thanks, Stan", Velma said. “We knew you’d be reasonable.”

“Wanna see my grappling hook?”, Mabel asked Ben and Gwen excitedly. “I shot a zombie actress in the face with it!”

“Cool!”, Ben enthused.

“Ew, pass", Gwen demurred. “You mentioned journals, Dipper?”

“My Gruncle Ford's. He wrote them while investigating the mysteries of Gravity Falls”, Dipper explained hesitantly. 

“Excuse me!”, Stan interrupted. “I wasn’t serious when I said you could come in.”

Velma stepped up to Stan. “One: Max and his grandkids are from a parallel universe, and from the way you're acting, you’re probably part of the reason why they’re here. Two: last night there was a widespread gravitational anomaly. Three: You, and possibly the mysterious brother you’ve never mentioned are hiding something. Now tell me I’m wrong", she dared him.

“Oi", the con-man sighed, surrendering to the inevitable. “Come on in, I’ll go get Ford. Kids, stay out of trouble.” 

Velma, Marcie, and Max were sitting in the living room while Danny and Wendy continued putting the gift shop back into some semblance of order.

Max was impressed by the stonework foundation of the A-frame cabin that had become the out of the way tourist attraction.

“Stanley, I don’t see why I have to take valuable time we don’t have away from my preparations, just to meet some random person you claim is from a parallel universe”, Stanford ‘Ford' Pines complained as he was practically pushed into the living room. “And I’m certainly not going to invite--"

Max Tennyson half-smiled when he saw the item in Ford's trenchcoat pocket, cleared his throat, and said a few words in a language that made the hair rise on the back of Ford's neck.

Ford paused, stunned, then replied, the honorific in his tone evident to everyone in the room before switching back to English. “You won’t mind if I confirm that?”, he said, adjusting his square-framed glasses. 

Max lifted a hand. “Go right ahead.”

Ford produced a small metallic device from his trenchcoat pocket, adjusted a control or two, and swept everyone one the couch with the pale green light the device emitted. The device emitted a high-pitched hum, and two beeps before Ford consulted a display, comparing it to a paper tape the device had reeled out.

“You’re wrong, Stanley”, Ford announced smugly. “There’s actually two lifeforms of extra-dimensional origin you’ve let into my-"

“Our!”, Stan objected.

“-The- house", Ford conceded. “The question is, is either of them hostile? Could one or both be an agent of ‘him’? For that matter, anyone outside of the family might be compromised.”

“’He’ who?”, Velma inquired, her sleuthing instinct insisting this detail was important.

Max rubbed his chin, considering data, correlating facts. “’He' is someone or something alien, hostile and so intrinsically dangerous that people who encounter the entity become habitually overcautious about casual mention of it's name. Those who survive the encounter, that is.” 

“You reached that conclusion with remarkably little input, Mister Tennyson”, Ford noted. “I’ll admit I’m curious about where you learned the language of the seventeenth dimension.”

“You mean Galvan? I learned it when I was a Plumber”, Max smiled. “You?”

“I became sufficiently fluent during my fifth year trapped between dimensions”, Ford explained. 

“Niburu", Marcie said quietly, hands clasped on her skirt, looking down.

“What--", from Max.

“—Did you just say?”, finished Ford.

Velma reached hesitantly for her girlfriend. “Are you alright, Marcie?”

“I’m not an idiot”, Marcie said. “I’m a decent engineer, and dabbled in occult research when I was with Mystery Incorporated, so I can tell when someone is being evasive about both. I learned that from you, V. Her. I mean, the Velma…Damn it!” Marcie twisted and bunched the material of her skirt. She viciously wiped away a tear. “I came here by accident, after I was tricked, -we- were tricked into freeing an Annunaki. The worst of the worst. 

“And it destroyed my world, my reality. I didn’t escape. I broke the Planispheric Disc, stole one of the pieces, and the spell holding the gate to the prison dimension collapsed, and I fell through, ending up here. I got lucky, very lucky. Velma found me.

“So whatever it is you’re preparing for, Mister Pines, count me in! You can’t stop me, so you might as well let me help. I’m not losing Velma again!” The fierce determination in her eye dared Ford to deny her.

Velma had a protective arm around Marcie's shoulders. “That goes double for me. Where Marcie goes, I go.”

“We could have used a whole lot of people like you helping the Plumbers, Miss Fleach", Max said with a note of pride. “You too, Velma.”

“Am I the only person wondering what the hell plumbing has to do with anything you nerds are talking about?”, Stan asked heatedly.

“In the alternate universe I come from, the Plumbers are interstellar peacekeepers and law enforcement whose existence is more or less concealed from the general public”, Max explained. “That how I know the Galvan language, and why I recognized the Galvan scriptographic multi-pen in your pocket, Mister Pines.”

Ford sat in the easy chair. “This is fascinating. All of us have had experienced anomalous trans-dimensional transits, yet due to cosmological variances have arrived in relative proximity to one another.”

The sound of shattering glass from the gift shop made them all look that direction.

*-*-*

Dipper and Gwen sat on the sun-faded couch on the porch, watching as Ben and Mabel chased each other around the lawn. Ben had been deeply impressed by Mabel’s grappling hook launcher. 

“Illuminatus!”, Gwen pronounced, and a pale blue sphere of light appeared around her hand.

Dipper stared, fascinated. “How are you doing that?”

“I know some magic", Gwen smiled. “I seem to have knack for it.” The light fluttered and winked out as her concentration faded. “Dipper, you seem like someone who knows a few things.”

Dipper flushed slightly at the attention from the pretty ginger-haired girl. “You might say that.”

“What if you knew you were going to die?”, Gwen blurted out. “Not the exact day, but maybe how, and roughly how long you might have until…” She looked at him, questions in her green eyes.

“That went to a dark place in a hurry", Dipper said. 

Gwen stared glumly at the porch floor. “I saw myself die yesterday”, she said softly. “Not me now, but an older me.”

A flash of green light around the corner of the Mystery Shack went unheeded by both of them.

“Ugh. Time travel. Literally the worst”, Dipper empathized. “If it makes you feel any better, I was stripped out of my body and possessed by an evil extra-dimensional triangle. And that was before being turned to wood by an angry ghost.”

Gwen poked Dipper in the thigh. “You seem better now, Pinnochio.”

“Don’t you mean ‘Pin-oak-chio?’”

Gwen smirked. “Fir sure", she drawled in an exaggerated California valley girl accent.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Gwen?”, Dipper inquired.

“Ten.”

“Fooled me", Dipper nodded. “I thought you were closer to Mabel’s age.” He saw her eyebrow lift, and answered her question pre-emptively. “Almost thirteen. Twins. Our birthday is nine days away.” 

“I only get six more.” Gwen looked at Dipper, anxiety on her face. “It’s not fair! I finally meet a boy who’s not a total dweeb, and--"

A large bipedal wolf creature dropped from the porch roof to the ground in front of them, eyes glinting.

“Werewolf!!”, Dipper yelled, recoiling.

The beast reached out with a taloned hand. “You were totally going to kiss him, weren’t you, Gwen?” Blitzerwolf/Ben laughed. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

“Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, you’re a jerk!”, Gwen screamed, bursting into tears.

“She’s right, Ben", Mabel agreed, coming around the corner. “Scaring people isn’t cool.”

*-*-*

Wendy looked out the window, snowglobe in hand. “Not too many decent days before school starts, Danny. Want to hit the pool before it closes?”

“Sure. I have my own trunks now”, Danny grinned.

Wendy smiled, turning back to the window. “Cool.” A flicker of movement caught her eye. Some kind of wolf monster, like out of Dipper's journal landed in front of the porch. “Holy crap!”

The snowglobe fell to the floor and shattered as Wendy snatched up the broom and charged out of the gift shop, teeth gritted, murder in her eye.  
“Get away from them, fleabag!”, she bellowed, striking the beast with her broom repeatedly, driving it back. “Get the girls inside, Dipper!”

“Ow! Ow! Hey!”, Blitzerwolf/Ben yelped as Wendy thrashed him with the broom. “Lay off, you crazy backwoods—Ow!” Blitzerwolf/Ben had been backpedaling, trying to escape the hail of blows from the enraged teen.

On the porch, Dipper watched, neutral expression on his face. “That’s your cousin?”

Gwen wiped away a tear. “Yup.”

“Wendy is really beating the crap out of him", Dipper calmly stated the obvious, watching his one-time crush.

“We should do something", Gwen nodded.

Mabel passed a bowl of popcorn. “Way ahead of you, bro-bro.”

Gwen, Dipper, and Mabel sat on the couch. “How did…?”, Gwen began.

“It’s best not to ask", Dipper deadpanned.


	5. Chapter 5

“You embarrassed the family, Benjamin”, Grandpa Max said as he tended the minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises Ben had received during his altercation with Wendy Corduroy. Ben was perched on the bathroom counter in their motel room, his t-shirt draped over the edge. “Bad enough you got in a fight with a girl, but to use the Omnitrix in an attempt to scare your cousin is frankly almost unforgivable in her present state of mind. I’m very disappointed in you.”

Ben stared glumly at the tiled floor. 

Max sighed and sat on the edge of the tub. “I understand that you were excited to make a new friend, and were wanting to show off. Mabel has a lot of the same impulsive and creative energy you do. But deliberately disobeying me and scaring Gwen and Mabel’s twin brother was going too far.

“Stan and Ford told me a very small amount of what their family has been through this summer. So you behaving like a…”, Max rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Your behavior made a difficult situation even more tense. Please start thinking about how your actions affect other people.”

Max stood up and handed Ben his shirt. “Heroes don’t win all the time, Ben.”

“I’m sorry, Grandma Max.”

Max clapped Ben on the shoulder. “I know you are. Go apologize to Gwen. I’m going to step outside for a moment for some fresh air.”

Gwen was sitting on the bed she had claimed, wearing her nightshirt, arms wrapped around her drawn up legs, chin on her knees. Ben sat on the edge of the bed, not looking at her.

“Grandpa read you the riot act, huh?”, Gwen murmured.

Ben nodded. “I think it would have been better if he'd yelled at me. But he was just so…so…”

“Resigned to the fact you were behaving like a jackass again?”

Ben nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this. It feels like I broke something.”

“You did, Ben. You broke his trust”, Gwen said sadly. “Mine too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. But you keep saying sorry, and nothing changes.” A tear rolled down Gwen’s cheek. “I don’t have much longer, Ben. I had my whole life to look forward to, and now...now I don’t.” She rolled away from him, pulling the covers up. “Go away.” 

Ben plodded to the couch which had been made up for him to sleep on, and wrapped himself in the sheet and blanket, facing the upholstered back of the sofa instead of the room. ‘Well, Tennyson’, he thought to himself, ‘You managed to royally screw up summer vacation. Good job.’

*-*-*

Max stood on the motel’s strip of lawn barefoot, feeling the cool grass under his feet, staring up at the darkening evening sky, hands in his pockets. He could just make out the first glimmers of starlight. “Jesus, Verdona. What do I do now?”

“Ask your friends for help.” Max turned to see Danny, in his white-haired ghost form, hovering nearby. 

Max nodded, introspective. “Those are mighty thin on the ground at the moment.” 

Danny shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“That’s a pretty grim assessment from someone your age”, Max said.

Danny sat cross-legged in mid-air. “Ben doesn’t know where he fits in anymore. I guess his acting up is him trying to figure out where his new boundaries are. That’s something I get. I was a jerk for the first couple of weeks after I turned into…whatever I am.”

“How do you your parents feel about you...?”, Max inquired. 

“Dad wants to cut me open and find out what happened. Mom…might wait for me to be all dead before she lets him”, Danny shrugged. “I’m an emancipated minor now, so they can’t come after me.” He paused. “Legally.”

Danny looked up at the stars. “Jazz is pretty pissed at them.”

“Jazz?”

“My sister, Jasmine. She’s dating my ex-almost-girlfriend, Sam”, Danny smiled ruefully. “Mom is livid she’ll never have grandkids.”

“Ouch.”

The night was almost silent in the town, just a very occasional car in the distance. 

“Wendy and I are going to the pool tomorrow. We can take the kids off your hands for a couple of hours, if that’s okay”, Danny offered.

“Do you think that’s wise?”, Max asked.

“No”, Danny replied. “It should be a lot of fun. Soos said he’ll drop off the twins.”

“Stan and Ford are okay with it?”

“Stan wants the kids to have a great summer. Even if Ford is pissed at him. Wendy? Once she figured out Ben is in the same kinda mess I am, she cut him a lot of slack. Me?” Danny shrugged. “I’m just taking life one day at a time. It’s all I have. And believe me, I know for a fact you can’t take it with you.”

“You miss them don’t you, Danny.” It wasn’t a question.

“Every damn day.”

“Have a good night, Daniel.”

“You too, Mister Tennyson.”

“Max”, he said extending his hand.

“Danny.” They shook hands.

“You’d have made one hell of a Plumber, son.”

*-*-*

August 23rd 

Velma blearily opened one eye to glare at her phone that had rudely demanded attention as it's screen glowed, chime sounding, the entire device buzzing against the bedside table top. 

“It dies, or you do”, Marcie mumbled into Velma’s back, her arm draped over Velma’s waist. Velma silenced the phone, briefly checking her messages.

One caught her eye. ‘Work finished, dropped off at motel, keys at office.’

“Jinkies!” Velma sat up excitedly, groping for her glasses, Marcie giving an indignant squeak as she was rudely displaced.

“What?!”, Marcie demanded as Velma shrugged on a t-shirt and pulled on a pair of shorts. 

“It’s done!”, Velma cheered.

Marcie sat up half-naked in bed, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “What’s done?”

“The Mystery Machine!”

“V, not to point out the obvious, but you almost totalled the Mystery Machine in our escape from Northwest Manor. It’s impossible for any mechanic to have completed those kinds of repairs in less than forty-eight hours.” Marcie grumbled as she got out of bed, putting on her own glasses and wrapping the sheet around herself to follow her girlfriend as Velma threw open the door to look into the parking lot.

The Mystery Machine. Looking showroom new, paint and chrome shining like it was freshly polished.

The sheet dropped to the floor, forgotten. “Aroo?”, was all Marcie could manage to say. She shook her head in disbelief. Then realized she was standing stark naked in the door to their room in broad daylight. 

The door slammed shut.

*-*-*

“Okay, you can do this!", Lynn Tennyson told herself as she stood in front of the motel room door. “It’s just Grandpa Max. And Ben. And yourself. What could go wrong?”

Lynn took a calming breath, raising her hand to knock. Two doors down, another motel patron opened their door and stepped out, a short voluptuous attractive woman with glasses and dark auburn hair cut in a style similar to Lynn's. 

The door slammed behind the woman, causing her to jump.

Lynn shrugged, and knocked on the door. ‘No turning back now', she thought to herself.

“I think it was very nice of Wendy to invite you two swimming, especially after yesterday", Max was saying as he opened the door. “Hello, yes? I thought we were paid up until--"

“Hi, Grandpa Max. It’s me. Gwen”, she waved, smiling nervously. ‘This was a terrible, bad, why-in-gods-name-did-you-do-this idea’, she thought, panicking.

Her grandfather stared at her, mouth hanging open. This was a stupid idea! The worst idea in the history of blundering catastrophe-inducing miscalculations.

“Oh. Um… I’ll go then", she blushed furiously, turning to leave. 

Only to be wrapped in a Hawaiian shirt swaddled embrace. “Don’t you ever scare us like that again!”

Gwen looked out from the bathroom, pulling up the shoulder strap of her teal swimsuit. “Is that Danny alread—Oh! What?! You're--!"

Gwen’s eyes rolled back and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.

*-*-*

Lynn sat on the couch, trying not to fidget as Grandpa Max tended to Gwen.

“She'll be alright. Just a bit of shock I suspect", he said.

Ben was staring at her. He poked her knee, testing if she was real. “Your butt got bigger”, he said.

Lynn facepalmed. “Eventually, you almost stop being a jerk.”

“Ben, don’t pester your cousin. Remember what I talked to you about”, Max cautioned.

Gwen groaned and sat up. “I don’t feel so good.” She looked around, focusing on Lynn. 

“You’re still here! You're alive!”, Gwen bounded out of bed. “You’re alive! That means I’m alive! I get to live!” 

Gwen lunged to hug Lynn, only to have Lynn make a short range teleport hop to avoid the embrace. “I really don’t know if that’s a good idea! Professor Paradox was always very emphatic about not crossing alternate timestreams.”

Ben scoffed. “That didn’t stop you when you dragged us off to celebrate grandpa's eightieth birthday!”

“That wasn’t me! Well it was me, but not ‘Me' me! It was another me, well us, I mean Gwendolyn!”, Lynn desperately explained. 

“Breathe, Gwen. Slow down”, her grandfather advised. 

“Gwen, please! I need to know you’re really real", Gwen begged on the verge of tears. “Please!”

“I’m so sorry”, Lynn whispered to her younger self, embracing her, eyes closed, hoping oblivion wouldn’t hurt too much.

Time stopped, measured in the single rhythmic beating of two hearts.

Someone was weeping. They both were.

“You’re real! You’re real, you’re real, you’re real”, Gwen sobbed, clinging to Lynn.

Lynn kissed the top of her younger self's head reassuringly. “We both are”, she said softly. 

There was a knock at the door. “That’s probably Danny, Ben. Would you mind waiting outside until the girls are ready?”, Max requested. 

“Sure, Grandpa.”

Lynn looked at her grandfather, a question in her eyes. “The kids are going to the local pool with some new friends. I think it would be a good idea if you went too, don’t you?”, Max suggested.

Gwen stared up at Lynn, green eyes beseeching.

Lynn smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.”


	6. Chapter 6

Ben pulled the motel room door closed, hearing the latch engage. Danny leaned against the wall, a study in detached relaxation. Further along the walkway, Ben could see Velma walking back from the office with a cheeky smile.

“You all ready to go?”, Danny quizzed.

“Mostly", Ben hedged. “We had an…unexpected family reunion. Gwen will be out in a minute.”

Danny glanced over his shoulder. “Morning, Velma. How did you get the new ride so fast?”

Velma grinned. “You’re looking at the one and only, original Mystery Machine.”

“No way! The Mystery Machine looked like someone beat it with a hammer two days ago!”, Danny marveled. “This looks like it just came out of the showroom.”

“The local mechanic is a wizard”, Velma agreed. 

The doors to Velma and Marcie's room and the Tennyson’s room opened less than a second apart, Marcie coming out of her room, and Gwen and a very attractive ginger haired young woman wearing blue glasses stepped out of the Tennyson’s. Danny swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. “Hi. Danny. Swimming. Taking Ben and Gwen”, he stumbled.

“What Captain Eloquence here is trying to say is it’s a pleasure to meet you", Velma sassed. “I'm Velma, this is Marcie.” 

“Hullo", Marcie waved.

“Lynn", she introduced herself. “I’m Gwen’s sister.” A look passed between Velma and Marcie. “Grandpa Max suggested I might tag along with Danny, help him wrangle Ben and my sister at the pool.” 

“Did you bring a shock collar for Ben?”, Marcie quipped. Ben crossed his arms, scowling at the slender brunette. 

Lynn ruffled Ben’s hair. “He has his moments. Um, I hate to ask, but this was kinda last minute, and I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“You can borrow one of mine", Marcie volunteered, beckoning Lynn towards her motel room. “C'mon.”

“Where’s Wendy?”, Velma queried.

“She’s meeting us at the pool", Danny said. “Soos is bringing Dipper and Mabel.”

“Sounds fun. Mind if we tag along? We can give you a lift.”

Danny nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

Marcie and Lynn rejoined them. “Want to go to the pool, Ma—Never mind”, Velma corrected herself in mid-sentence, seeing Marcie in her sun hat, a drawstring bag hooked over her arm. Mischief glinted in Marcie's violet eyes.

“I grabbed your suit, V", Marcie grinned impishly.

“That’s my girl", Velma purred, kissing Marcie.

Danny opened the side doors, and Ben and Gwen climbed in, followed by Lynn, and Marcie shut the doors when Danny resumed his former seat leaning against the transmission hump. Marcie slid into the passenger seat and buckled up while Velma started the Mystery Machine and backed out for the ten or so minute drive to the Gravity Falls Pool.

When Danny popped open the doors to let himself and the Tennysons out, Velma tapped Marcie and nodded subtly in Lynn’s direction. Marcie nodded in agreement.

“Lynn, do you have a second?”, Marcie asked as Lynn moved to exit the van.

“Uh, sure?” Lynn paused in the door.

“”I'll run ahead and get our pool fee paid”, Marcie announced, opening her door and grabbing her bag.

Lynn’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What's going on?”

“I could ask you the same thing, ‘Lynn'. Or is it ‘Gwen'?”, Velma queried, tapping her chin with a forefinger.

Lynn looked down, evaluating her options, then back at Velma. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I heard you introduce yourself to Max as ‘Gwen'”, Velma pointed out. “It took him a moment, but he did recognize you. I know a family hug when I see one.” She could see the doubt and desperation in Lynn's eyes.

Velma played a hunch. “I know for a fact Max Tennyson and his grandchildren come from an alternate reality. I’ll bet you a Scooby Snak you are too. Just one a few years farther along in time than the one Max and the kids are from.”

“How…?” Lynn felt pinned to the spot by Velma’s gaze.

“Your freckle pattern is identical to Gwen’s. Younger Gwen’s, that is”, Velma surmised. “I’ll guess your retinal patterns and fingerprints are a match too.” 

Lynn's shoulders slumped. “What happens now?”

“We go swimming.”

“What?” Lynn was dumbfounded.

“Swimming”, Velma grinned. “Voluntary immersion in water for the purpose of relaxation and recreation.”

“You believe me, but you’re not going to hand me over to the authorities”, Lynn regarded Velma levelly. 

Velma nodded. “Pretty much. My concern was you might try to scam Max. His reaction to you pretty much settled that. So, ready to get wet?”

“You’re good people, Velma.”

*-*-*

Wendy held hands with Danny, who were waiting with Dipper and Mabel, who was chatting animatedly with Ben. Gwen stood nearby, trying to look mature. Marcie handed Velma her swimsuit rolled in a towel when they got close. They passed through the turnstile under the gorgon stare of Mister Poolcheck, head lifeguard.

“Pines. Corduroy”, Poolcheck snarled. “I’ll have my eye on you.”

“What’s his malfunction?”, Marcie inquired. Velma shrugged. 

Wendy and Dipper had the grace to look chagrined. “Long story”, Dipper explained. “Poolcheck takes his job very seriously.”

Danny clapped Dipper and Ben on the back. “My dudes, just remember we are outnumbered. Let's meet our fate with dignity.”

“Wait, what?!”, Dipper exclaimed.

“Cute girls in swimsuits. Be cool”, Danny advised as they entered the men’s changeroom.

“No mercy, ladies", Wendy announced, causing most of the female half of the party to giggle.

Locker doors clattered open and closed, clothes exchanged for swimwear. 

“Daaaaang!”, Marcie exclaimed, looking at Lynn. 

Velma glanced up. “Oh my.”

Lynn was wearing Marcie’s spare bikini, a distinct dusty blue. The right side of the top bore a white label that on close inspection read ‘Police Telephone for Public Use, Pull to Open'. The left side had the distinct St. John's ambulance cross. Across the back of the bottom white text read ‘Police Box'.

“I don’t look half as good in that", Marcie blinked. 

“Whataya think?”, Wendy announced as she turned around, in an emerald green bikini. Lynn felt a warm tingle deep in her core.

Velma surveyed the display of feminine pulchritude she and her friends made. “I think the male population of the pool are in serious danger.”

‘They're not the only ones', Lynn thought to herself, following Wendy and the others to the showers.

It was purely coincidental timing that Yello's ‘Oh Yeah' was playing as they entered the pool area, Velma in her white one piece, Marcie in her yellow and red bikini, Wendy in emerald green, Lynn in the Tardis bikini, Gwen in her teal one piece, and Mabel in her pink one piece decorated with a yellow shooting star.

Pacifica Northwest, lounging on a pool chaise in a royal purple bikini, lifted her sunglasses. “Show offs", she smirked.

Danny missed the pool edge, distracted by Wendy, and fell in. 

The girls claimed a patch of pool deck near Pacifica, spreading out their towels. Happy late summer chaos ruled the pool itself, with splashing and horseplay. Several older teens or adults floated on air mattresses or ring inflatables, enjoying the sun. Grunda waved at Mabel before performing an impressive cannonball that soaked Ben, much to Gwen's delight. Robbie Valentino and Tamby shared a shadowed corner.

Dipper wandered over, nodding to Wendy, before addressing Pacifica. “Slumming with the peasants?”

“I thought I would grace the rabble with my radiant presence", Pacifica smirked at him. “Bring me a soda", she ordered. “Please.” The flicker of irritation Dipper felt flickered and died. “Okay", he nodded.

Wendy dove in from the edge, surfacing a moment later, her mane of red hair floating around her. She watched appreciatively as Danny launched himself from the diving board, hair flashing from black to white, in a graceful dive with impressive hang time. 

Lynn surfaced beside Wendy, both semi1floating, toes barely touching the bottom of the pool. “You’re with him?”

Wendy nodded, smirking. “Oh yeah.” She took a moment to study Lynn. “You work at Greasy's, right?”

Lynn nodded affirmative. “Usually evening shift.”

“Just here for the summer?”

“Don’t know", Lynn admitted. “It’s…complicated.”

Ben and Mabel were taking turns trying to out do each other holding their breath underwater. Gwen had stretched out, and she, Dipper, and Pacifica seemed to be getting along. 

Danny swam over, nuzzling Wendy. “Hey, girl. Wendy, Lynn. Lynn, Wendy. Lynn is here with her sister and cousin.”

“Wait, you’re related to the shapeshifting twerp?”, Wendy looked askance at Lynn, who nodded. “Does he always pull bonehead stunts?”

“With annoying regularity", Lynn frowned.

Wendy whispered in Danny's ear. He nodded. “Are you working tonight?”, Wendy inquired.

“No. Mind if I ask why?”, Lynn glanced at the pair.

“Pizza and bad movies.”

“We'll make a night of it”, Danny said. “I’ll tell Velma and Marcie.”

Lynn scoffed. “One guy and four women? Harem fantasy much?”

“Are you kidding me? Sunlight can’t pass between those two”, Danny pointed out.

*-*-*

Gwen eventually decided to dive in to cool off, leaving Pacifica and Dipper to their own devices.

“Thank you.” The comment caught Dipper off guard. He looked at Pacifica, still not trusting her.

“You’re welcome?”

Pacifica sat up, swinging her legs off the chaise, patting the space beside her. Dipper regarded her skeptically. “It's okay, Pines. I’m not going to bite.” She gripped the edge of the chaise. “I need someone to talk to, and you’re the only one who won’t think I’m a loon.” Dipper joined her on the chaise, hands between his knees.

“I haven’t been sleeping well”, Pacifica said. “Between two insane ghosts, and finding out my family are terrible, I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell my parents, they’ll have me locked up.” 

“Gimme your phone", Dipper said, holding out his hand. Pacifica did so after opening it, curious. Dipper went to her contacts, and made an entry. 

“Call or text me when you can’t sleep. I’ll probably be awake anyway.” He handed her phone back. Pacifica looked at him. “Everyone has their demons. There’s no reason to fight them by yourself.”


	7. Chapter 7

The only warning Carl Kolchak got was a flicker of orange light above him and a faint snapping-pop before a rather attractive curvaceous red-headed woman landed on his desk with a remarkable ‘thud’ and a yip of pained indignation. She also happened to land squarely atop the hot Chicago-style pastrami on rye sandwich he had gone to great lengths to procure in the provincial back-water town of Gravity Falls, squashing it flat. The large kosher dill on the side met a similar fate. Spilled coffee flooded his desk from beneath the woman, threatening to dribble off the edge onto his new-to-him suit pants.

She woozily attempted to sit up, mouth opening and closing like a fish's, faint mewling sounds barely audible as she rolled to her left, hand missing the edge, overbalancing and falling to the floor, her twin narrow blue mustard-stained capes dragging the ruins of his sandwich with her, as Carl thrust himself backwards, his wheeled office chair carrying him beyond the cascading coffee that spattered on the floor.

He half stood, peering over the edge of the desk. ‘My lunch', he thought mournfully to himself. What he said was, “Miss? Are you alright?” More faint mewling sounds, and Carl cautiously moved around the right-hand end of his desk to look at the woman, who finally drew a great whooping breath, gasping, supporting herself on her elbows. Short bright ginger hair, brilliant green eyes in an attractive face with a slightly pointed chin. A tight fitting cowl neck blue tunic with black sleeves, the right one having some few raised metallic looking decorations. Very tight black leggings tucked into knee-high black boots. An oval belt buckle decorated with a blue enamel cat face.

She took a few steadying slow breaths, no longer gasping, looking up at him. “Um, hi?”

Kolchak eyed the ceiling dubiously, then the young woman. “Nice of you to drop in. Don’t mind the mess.” She rolled over and stood up with a groan, ‘tch'-ing at the grease and mustard stain on her cape.

“Would I regret it by asking where I am?”, she asked, surveying the cluttered newspaper office.

“Probably", Kolchak admitted. “Here, by the way, is the charming village of Gravity Falls, Oregon, renowned for being the epicenter of unusual events and paranormal activity that almost no-one has ever heard of.”

“Well, it’s a shame that I won’t be staying then”, the woman grinned. “Gotta go", and she moved her hands in a complex circular gesture.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, frowning in concern.

The same non-result.

“Uh, miss?", Carl interrupted. “While entertaining, you don’t need to go to that much effort to wave goodbye. A simple ‘See you later' and a casual wave would suffice”, he said, demonstrating.

“No, no, no, no, no! Not now!”, she grumbled, tone rising. She tried the circular gesture again, and again nothing happened. “Shit!”

“Can we try this again?”, Kolchak inquired. “My name is Carl Kolchak, and you landed, unannounced, and might I add uninvited, on my lunch. Which had consisted of the first decent pastrami sandwich I’ve been able to find in this Podunk backwater.” She glared at him. “This is the part where you apologize and introduce yourself.”

“I don’t have time for this!” Again the circular gesture. “No, no, no! God damn it!”

Kolchak exhaled in resignation, leaning against his desk. “I take it your magical incantation isn’t behaving as expected?” She glanced at him, suspicious.

“No, it isn't”, she admitted. “How would you know?”

Kolchak shrugged, looking innocent. “Oh, I’ve been around the block a few times. Seen some things.” He leaned towards her, predatory gleam in his eye. Kolchak smelled a story. “If you had dropped on almost anyone else’s desk like you did mine, in the way you did, you’d already be in a black government van headed for parts unknown, never to be seen again. I’m probably the one, well, almost the single chance you might have. Now spill.”

The red-head’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. But you won’t believe me.” She swept her capes from behind her and sat heavily in an office chair. “My name is Gwendolyn Tennyson. I work with my cousin, Ben Ten-Kay, as government sanctioned super-heroes, combating alien threats to the planet. Mostly.” She saw the doubt in Kolchak's expression. “Obviously, I use what you call ‘magic’.”

“Does your cousin also use magic?”

“No, he uses the Ultimatrix to transform into various extra-terrestrial lifeforms and uses their abilities to do the job at hand.”

A thought struck Kolchak. “What year is it?”

Gwendolyn hesitated. “Locally?”

Kolchak smirked. “Ahhhh”, he winked, waving a forefinger at her. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? You’re not from ‘here', are you?” She looked up at Kolchak, alarmed. “Yeah. Thought so. You’ve got exactly the same look now that friend of mine had a few weeks ago. She’s not from around ‘here' either.” Carl eased back against the desk. “Then again, technically, neither am I.” he saw the question in her green eyes. “To the best of my recollection, the year is 1978, or it was. That is, before I was abducted by aliens and eventually dumped in the middle of Wyoming in the year 2012, to be rescued by one Velma Dinkley and be delivered to my present lofty circumstances”, Carl commented wryly.

“Twenty-twenty-seven.” Gwendolyn hung her head, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. “And I have a very bad feeling about why my spell isn’t working.”

“Oh? Please feel free to theorize.”

“Have you ever heard of the parallel universe theory?”, Gwendolyn asked. Carl nodded a vague affirmative. “Multiple realities, very similar, but diverging on different points in history. Sometimes those differences are minor, and sometimes they are quite startling.”

“Like a universe where Lincoln wasn’t shot”, Carl suggested.

“Right", Gwendolyn nodded. “Now occasionally, some of these alternate realities are so intertwined that they influence each other, with inhabitants slipping between the realities without realizing that they’ve done so. With other realities, more…complicated techniques are required, usually involving the application of advanced technology to force open a portal.”

“And sometimes certain gifted individuals can use magic to make the trip”, Carl surmised. Another nod from Gwendolyn. “Can these…’wizards’, for lack of a better term, also travel back and forth in time?” 

Gwendolyn hesitated. Long enough that Carl knew he was right. “It’s incredibly dangerous", she finally admitted. “For the magic user and the timeline", she emphasized.

“So, you wouldn’t be able to say, send me back to Nineteen Seventy-eight?”

She glared at him. “Not a chance in hell, Kolchak. No way. You’ve become too integrated with the here and now. And it looks like I'm trapped here, because a time-travelling lunatic named Eon is hell-bent on controlling the multi-verse. And if he can’t control it, he'll destroy it.”

Carl needed to think. He retrieved a roll of paper towels and mopped up the puddles of cold coffee, and disposed of the soiled paper and the destroyed sandwich that was to have been his lunch. 

“I have a theory, Miss Tennyson. And I don’t think you’re going to like it.” She looked at Kolchak morosely when he spoke. “Your spell, your ticket home as it were, is dialing a number that’s no longer in service. You can’t go home any more than I can vote against Ronald Reagan in the California primary.”

Gwendolyn put her hand to mouth, stifling a sob. “Oh god. You’re right. Ben. Grandpa. Everyone. They’re…” 

Kolchak nodded somberly. “I don’t know about you, but I think I need a drink.”

Gwendolyn stood, unclipping her capes and hanging them from the office coat stand. “Right now, that seems like a very bad idea.” She gestured to lead the way. “Let’s go.”

Five minutes later they were seated at the bar in the tavern next door. “Well, well”, Vaggie smirked. “Look what the cat dragged in.” She gestured at Carl’s companion. “Another stray?”

“Vaggie, Gwendolyn. Gwen, Vaggie.”

“You don’t get to call me that, Kolchak", Gwendolyn warned him. “It’s Gwendolyn.” Kolchak raised his hands in defense and surrender. Gwendolyn shook Vaggie’s hand, then studied the chalkboard drinks menu. She pointed. “That one.”

Vaggie raised her visible eyebrow. “Really?” 

Gwendolyn nodded. 

“Drink two in ten minutes, you get a memorial t-shirt”, Kolchak informed her.

Vaggie placed the Dinkley Special on the bar. “Your funeral.”

Gwendolyn lifted the mug. “Sláinte”, she said and chugged the contents as if she was in a scouse pub, slamming the empty container mouth down on the bar. “Hit me.”

Astonished, Vaggie complied.

The second mug joined the first on the bar moments later, and Gwendolyn sighed in somewhat inebriated relaxation.

“Jesus...” Kolchak’s tone was shocked appreciation. Vaggie nodded in agreement, handing the t-shirt to Gwendolyn, then took her picture.

“What?”, Gwendolyn queried.

Kolchak pointed at the chalkboard behind the bar, and the more than fifty pictures of failed previous attempts. The space for those victorious was blank.

“Oh.” A moment’s silence. “OH!”

The entrance door swung open for a moment, a Hawaiian shirt clad older man with a grey crew cut tucking his cellphone into a pocket, smiling when he spotted Kolchak. “Carl, I have to thank you for putting me in touch with your mechanic. Rust-bucket will be back on the road soon thanks to him.”

“GRANDPA??”

“Grandpa?”, Kolchak echoed.

“Estas jodiendo conmigo”, Vaggie implored the ceiling.

Gwendolyn slid off barstool to stand, one hand gripping the bar to steady herself. “What? How?!”

The door swung shut behind Max. “Gwen?”

“Is—is anyone else as confused as I am?”, Kolchak inquired, eyebrows raised.

Gwendolyn took a hesitant step towards Max, brushing ginger hair out of her eyes. “How—? Wait… it’s Twenty-twelve here, which would make you sixty-five…”, she paused. “Does Ben have the Omnitrix?”

Max regarded Gwendolyn somberly. “Which one are you?”

Gwendolyn blinked. “Huh?”

Max walked up to the bar, seeing the two upturned steins. He looked askance at Kolchak, who nodded silent confirmation. Vaggie smiled nervously behind the bar as Max seated himself, ignoring his mature grand-daughter for the moment. “I’d like that beer and enchilada I missed out on last time, please.” Kolchak signaled he’d have the same.

Gwendolyn resumed her seat next to Max, silent, waiting. 

Vaggie handed over the beer, Max taking an appreciative sip. He sighed, looking at Gwendolyn. “Right now I have my Gwen, who’s out swimming with Ben and some local kids they made friends with. Her sixteen year other self warned us about Eon three days ago, then arrived here six or so weeks ago, turning up at my door this morning. Now you turn up. You’re about, what, thirty?”

Gwendolyn nodded. 

Max raised a finger, coincidently forestalling Kolchak whom was enough to ask a question. “Now we'll play the bonus round. Neither of us are from ‘this’ reality, correct?”

Gwendolyn cradled her forehead in both hands, groaning quietly. “Did Bezel have these headaches?”, she asked no-one in particular.

Kolchak raised his eyebrows at Vaggie. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on here?”

Vaggie crossed her arms and leaned against the bar. “Not a fucking clue.” Nonplussed, Kolchak sipped his beer.


	8. Chapter 8

Max Tennyson popped the last bite of the enchilada into his mouth as Gwendolyn finished explaining how she had arrived in Carl Kolchak’s office. He chewed meditatively for a moment, considering what to do. This was not the quiet summer vacation with his two grandchildren that he’d planned. His grandson Ben now wore a piece of extraterrestrial technology that enabled him to assume one of ten alien forms, and one grand-daughter had suddenly become three individuals of widely divergent ages, all capable of using arcane power in similarly varying degrees of expertise.

He took a sip of Salvadoran beer, reflecting on how the newly expanded family had come to be stranded, at least temporarily, in the small out-of-the-way Oregon town of Gravity Falls. Max’s cellphone rang and vibrated at the same instant that the tavern door opened to admit Stan Pines, who was gruffly, if good-naturedly coercing -another- Stan Pines, this one wearing a tan trench coat over a burgundy turtle-neck sweater into the establishment. 

“I’m tellin' ya, Ford, with the Mystery Shack about to be taken over by one of Mabel's sleepover parties, you’ll be glad for a couple of stiff belts”, Stan argued.

Max answered the call with a feeling of mild parental dread. “Hello?”

“Hi, Grandpa Max, it’s Gwen! Mabel invited us to a sleepover at her gruncle's place. Ben has promised to behave himself.”

Max frowned for a moment. Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow. ”What about Lynn?”, he asked Gwen.

“She’s going to join Danny, Wendy, and Velma and Marcie in a movie night at the motel.” 

Max could feel a headache coming on. He let out a sigh, knowing when to surrender to the inevitable. “Alright, have fun, listen to Mister Pines. Pass Ben the phone.”

“Hi, Grandpa”, Ben said a moment later.

“If I hear one word about you using the Omnitrix, it’s nothing but museums and mini golf for the rest of the summer”, Max promised.

“No worries, Grandpa”, Ben replied. “I’m gonna show Dip how to play Sumo Slammers. To make up for going Blitzerwolf on him.”

“You and Gwen have fun then. Rust-bucket should be back on the road soon.” Max closed the connection and slipped the phone in his pocket, and looked down the bar past Kolchak to where Stan Pines was sitting with his twin.

“We’re supposed to be keeping knowledge of my return to a minimum, Stanley", the trench coat clad man complained.

“You worry too much, Ford”, Stan countered. “Besides, Vaggie is a regular sphinx, and Kolchak here owes me.” 

“And just what is it I'm supposed to be quiet about?”, inquired Carl, curiosity piqued.

“Ford is worried you’ll blab about his sudden reappearance", Stan explained. 

Kolchak raised his eyebrows. “Really? That is interesting.”

“Leave it alone, Carl", Max Tennyson warned.

“Now why would I do that? I literally had a lead on a story drop in my lap, and now I find out the resident ne'er-do-well had a twin brother appear out of nowhere”, Carl countered. “I think the reading public might find that quite intriguing.”

“Carl?”

“Yes, Vaggie?”

“You want to ever drink in here again?”

Kolchak raised a finger, opened his mouth, closed it for a moment, then spoke: “You make a very good point”, he finally admitted.

*-*-*

Danny rounded up Dipper and Ben, while Wendy and Lynn did the same with Mabel, each small group entering the showers to change and meet at the entrance. Where they were greeted by a waiting Pacifica Northwest. 

“There better be room in your peon-mobile", she announced.

“Wha-a…?”, Mabel wondered. 

“I’m going with you", Pacifica grinned.

“You. Pacifica Northwest. -The- Pacifica Northwest, are going to slum it. With us.” Dipper was dubious. 

Pacifica nodded. “I’ve already told my parents I’m spending the night at Tiffany's.”

“Pacifica! Lying to your parents!”, Mabel grinned. “You rebel!”

“Maybe we should let your parents know where you’ll really be…”, suggested Gwen.

Ben scoffed, eyeing the pretty blond heiress. “Don’t listen to ‘wet blanket’ here. We'll have a blast!” Gwen glared at Ben, while Mabel started coordinating plans with Grunda and Candy via text, and Wendy called Soos to inform him of the impending chaos.

Velma conferred with Marcie for a moment, then opened the doors to the Mystery Machine, and supervised as the excited throng boarded. Ben wound up between the rear doors and his cousin Gwen, who sat next to Dipper with Pacifica perched on his lap, beside an incredibly smug Mabel. Lynn wedged herself against the wall opposite Wendy, who braced against the drawers under the bed , and Danny scooted into his accustomed place leaning his back against the transmission hump, Velma driving and Marcie riding shotgun.

Pizzas were ordered upon reaching the Mystery Shack, and Danny, Wendy, and Lynn returned with Velma and Marcie to the motel after Candy and Grunda arrived. More pizzas and Mexican food was ordered after deciding Danny would host the bad movie party in his room.

“I’m going to get changed into something appropriate for the occasion”, Velma announced. 

“Good idea, V", Marcie nodded. “Leave the door unlocked, Dee-man, and we’ll be back in ten.”

“Dee-man?”, Velma snickered.

Wendy tossed her hat on the dresser, the rummaged in the drawers, tossing a t-shirt and a pair of Danny's gym shorts to Lynn, and liberated similar clothing for herself before removing her trademark green plaid and reaching under her own t-shirt to unclip her bra and remove it. “Freedom!”, she cried, waving the undergarment and tossing it on the dresser next to her hat as Danny blushed and Lynn giggled. Lynn's own bra followed a moment later. The girls changed in the bedroom while Danny retreated to the bathroom to change.

Velma and Marcie arrived with two six-packs of soda liberated from the Mystery Machine refrigerator. Wendy had claimed her spot lying next to Danny's left side, Danny close to the wall, and Lynn to Wendy's left, sitting next to Danny. Velma and Marcie made themselves comfortable on the second bed. Bowls of snacks were filled and passed around until the take-out Mexican food and pizzas arrived halfway through ‘Teenagers From Outer Space'.

It was just after midnight, while Velma and Marcie were snuggled close, and Danny was idly stroking Wendy's long hair, that Lynn stepped out into the cool night air. Wendy joined her a few moments later.

“Everything okay, dude?”, Wendy inquired.

“Yes. No…”, Lynn fidgeted, looking at Wendy then away. “There was a guy I was…involved with. Kevin. He and Ben, the Ben I knew, used to get into fights. Then I kinda…fell for Kevin and we had a…thing, for a while. I was getting serious about school, thinking about my future…and now, here I am.” She shrugged. 

“And me and Danny getting all…”, Wendy suggested.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get Danny to chill. He’s cool like that”, Wendy nodded with a slight smile.

“No, it's okay", Lynn offered. “Its just…oh damn it!”, she slapped the wall behind her before surprising Wendy by embracing her and planting a kiss on her mouth.

“Whoa!”, Wendy gasped, detaching herself. 

Tears welled in Lynn's eyes. “That was stupid of me. I’ll go-", she whispered, mortified. 

“No way!”, Wendy grinned, grabbing Lynn's arm. “You just caught me off guard was all.”

“I’ve been wanting to do that all day", Lynn whispered, blushing madly.

“I always wondered what it’d be like to kiss another girl", Wendy snickered.

“And?”

Wendy pulled Lynn close and returned the kiss. “Gimme some sugar.”

Lynn held Wendy tightly, kissing, nibbling. “Can I say I think your boyfriend is hot too?”

“Tell him yourself", Wendy said, fumbling the door open behind her, tugging Lynn in by the waist of her borrowed shorts.

Danny looked up as they entered. “Is everything alri--"

“Oh my!”, Marcie grinned, recognizing the look on Lynn’s face.

“Oh my, indeed!”, Velma agreed. “Would you look at the time?”, she announced, getting up and tugging a smiling Marcie out the door.

“Uh, Wendy? Wanna fill me in on what’s going on?”, Danny gulped nervously.

“How do you feel about sharing?”, Wendy suggested.

“Hah?”

Lynn stepped close, running a finger along the collar of Danny's shirt. “What Wendy means is you, me, and her. All of us. Together.”

Danny looked at Wendy. Then Lynn. Back at Wendy. He didn’t get any hint of anything supernatural. “Wendy? Are you alright?”

She embraced him. “Never better, ghost boy. Let’s just say…recent events have opened my eyes. About a lot of things.” A lingering, smoldering kiss, then reaching, pulling Lynn close, bestowing a similar kiss to her.

Lynn kissed Danny. Electric.

“Oh man…”, Danny whimpered. The three of them shared an embrace. “This could turn into a disaster.”

“Or it could be fantastic…”, Wendy suggested. 

“You only live once, Danny", Lynn whispered.


	9. Chapter 9

The residential part of the Gravity Falls tourist attraction known as the ‘World Famous Mystery Shack’ was a scene of benevolently-chaperoned merry chaos, divided very roughly into two separate but highly permeable bases, one in the loft bedroom shared by Dipper and Mabel that was now the girls area, and the living room, now occupied at least in part by Dipper, Soos, and Ben.

Mabel was wearing her usual purple shirt-dress for her sleepwear, and Grenda and Candy had both brought their own. Pacifica and Gwen wore large t-shirts liberated from Mystery Shack stock.

Ben had gotten the okay from Max to collect the shared game system from Rust-bucket, and which was now hooked up to the television in the living room. All of the kids (including Soos) had played in an informal ‘Sumo Slammers’ round-robin elimination tournament, with everyone having at least two turns. The surprise head-to-head battle had been between Pacifica and Grenda, with Pacifica proving to be a surprisingly canny tactical player compared to Grenda's implacable tank player style.

When Mabel announced it was ‘make-over time', Dipper paled. Noticing this, Ben asked what was going on.

“Don’t try to run, man. Just accept your fate with dignity”, Dipper advised him. Soos nodded sagely.

“You’re safe, Dipper", Pacifica announced haughtily. “It’s Gwen who could use a few pointers.”

“Are you saying I’m not girly enough?”, Gwen barked defensively. 

“Well, you’re more girly than Ben is, that’s for sure", Pacifica snarked.

“HEY!!”, Ben protested, too late as all the girls giggled. “I’m a hero!”

“Not to me your not", Pacifica cooed.

Ben instinctively reached for the Omnitrix, intent on showing up the snobbish heiress. “Oh yeah? Well just who do you think is a hero?”

“Don’t do it, Ben!”, Gwen warned him. “Remember what Grandpa Max said: museums and mini-golf if you screw up!”

A sly look slid over Pacifica. “Oh, I know how to reward a hero", she said, then gently kissed Dipper on the cheek. 

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence. 

“Oh-emm-gee", Candy whispered, eyes wide in amazement.

Mabel clapped her hands to her cheeks in delight, grinning, her braces flashing in the lamp light. “I’m a matchmaking legend!” Bright blushes rose on the faces of both Dipper and Pacifica.

“You must kiss her back!”, Candy demanded. “Return her affection or lose it forever!”

Ben pulled a face in mock disgust. “Eewwwww! Why do girls always wanna do gross stuff?”

Dipper laughed self-consciously, one hand behind his head. “Ha-ha, yeah, umm, that is, I…”

Pacifica lowered her eyes. “It’s okay, Dipper. You don’t have to.” She got up and went outside, sitting on the old couch, looking up at the stars that were just becoming visible. Dipper joined her a few minutes later.

“I’m sorry about that”, he apologized.

“It's okay, really", Pacifica mumbled.

Dipper smiled at her, lopsided. “I don’t not want to kiss you”, he offered.

“So I’m not the worst anymore?”

“I like you, Pacifica. Especially when I get to see the real you”, Dipper admitted.

Tentatively, Pacifica timidly put her hand on his. Dipper surprised her by actually holding hers, giving a gentle supportive squeeze. The both stared at the stars.

“Am I really your hero?”, Dipper asked.

Pacifica nodded. 

Dipper turned, looking Pacifica in the eye. “Can I?”

“Can you what, nerd boy?”, Pacifica gently mocked.

“Kiss you.” Dipper swallowed nervously.

Pacifica nodded, suddenly shy. “Any time you want.”

“I-I'm not very good at it", Dipper explained. “It’s not like I go around kissing every pretty girl I meet…”

“You think I’m pretty?”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, real pretty. Except when you frown, and-"

Pacifica embraced Dipper, and he froze for a second.

“Shut up and kiss me, nerd."

So he did. And they did. Time didn’t matter for an eternal second.

“Wow”, was all Dipper said when they parted. Pacifica blushed.

“We should go back inside before they start talking", Pacifica suggested.

“That boat sailed as soon as you left the room", Dipper pointed out.

Pacifica held up their clasped hands. “Together?” Dipper nodded, pausing to pick up what looked like a bottle cap with a faint glowing pink sigil on it. He’d check it against Gruncle Ford's journal later.

They re-entered the Mystery Shack to raucous cheers, just as Stan and Ford pulled up in Stan’s old car.

“Sounds like the kids are having a good time at least", Stan grinned as he picked up the three boxes of hot pizza from the back seat.

“I’ll be in my lab", Ford grumbled.

“Shoot yourself!”, Stan cheerfully finger-gunned his brother.

*-*-*

The unexpected second round of pizzas were greatly appreciated by all. Gwen took the opportunity to sidle up next to Pacifica, who was unused to dealing with the hot, stringy, cheesy delight.

“So, how was it?”, Gwen asked, not all that innocently.

“Keep your tourist hands off my boyfriend", Pacifica grinned around a mouthful, chewing, and then swallowing. “But if you must know-"

“Oh, we must, we must!”, chortled Grenda, who had been eavesdropping. 

“If you must know", Pacifica glowered at Grenda, repeating herself, “I think it’s the best kiss I ever had.”

Across the room, Dipper looked up. “Why are my ears burning?”, he asked no-one in particular. 

Ben was loading a third slice of pizza onto his paper plate, making it dangerously overloaded, when Mabel approached him. 

“Soooo”, Mabel broke the ice, “I own a pig, and I notice you don’t have a girlfriend, especially one who doesn’t own a pig…”

“Huh?”, Ben muttered around a bite of pizza, swallowing hastily.

“Have you had your summer romance yet?”, Mabel hinted.

“Wha-?” Ben was seriously out of his depth.

Mabel grinned. “Oh just admit it. You think I’m fabulous”, she said, batting her eyelashes at Ben.

Ben almost had the slim chance to understand he had stepped over his margin of error, when Mabel suddenly kissed him full on the lips. Ben’s eyes popped open in shock.

Mabel stepped back, smiling. “See you soon, Ben-Ben.”

“You go, girl!”, Grenda cheered. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, Piedmont represent!”

“This is so unfair", Candy Chiu lamented. “Everyone is getting the smooches but me.”

Pacifica and Gwen sat silently beside each other on the couch, stunned into silence. It was several seconds before Ben remembered to blink.

“Daaaang", Gwen and Pacifica said simultaneously, then bumped fists in solidarity.

Not too long later, the boys took over the front room to play ‘Fight Fighters' on the console Soos had brought from his home, and Dipper and Ben compared the relative strengths and merits of Rumble McSkirmish versus Ishiyama from ‘Sumo Slammers'. Soos imparted his wisdom on how to avoid psychotic Japanese dating simulation AI girlfriends, especially ones named GIFfany. Dipper warned Ben about the cheat code that had brought Rumble McSkirmish into the real world.

Upstairs in Dipper and Mabel's room, Mabel reigned over the slumber party like a benevolent glitter-dusted dictator, taking suggestions for Gwen's makeover from Pacifica who had claimed Dipper's bed to sleep in for the night. Eventually, Mabel declared the process complete, and she, Grenda, and Candy moved aside so Pacifica could see the final result.

“Oh, we have -got- to test this out on the boys!”, Pacifica decreed.

Gwen scowled. “Fine. But I get to lay a kiss on Dipper if he says anything complimentary.”

Pacifica smirked. “Alright, give me ten minutes to put my face on, and if Ben reacts, I’ll kiss him. Deal?”

“Deal!”, Gwen declared.

“Ooh, ooh, and if all the boys downstairs react, you kiss each other!” Grenda enthusiastically suggested. 

Pacifica side-eyed Gwen. “I’ll bet my solid gold hoop earrings you chicken out, Tennyson."

“Oh, it’s on, Northwest!”, Gwen growled.

*-*-*

Ten minutes later, Mabel, Grenda, and Candy peered around the corner as Pacifica and Gwen strutted up to the living room to lean enticingly on opposite sides of the doorway. 

“Hello, Dipper", Gwen purred.

“Good evening, Benjamin", Pacifica murmured.

Both boys looked up. Game controllers fell from nerveless fingers with twin clatters. 

Soos glanced up from the suddenly paused game. “Oh boy…”

“I think we got our answer, Gwen. Time to pay up”, Pacifica chuckled.

Never one to back away from a challenge, Gwen accepted Pacifica's embrace, and kissed the blonde heiress.

“No way…”, Ben whispered. Dipper laughed nervously and pulled a pillow from the couch over his crossed legs.

Both Gwen and Pacifica laughed, then dashed back upstairs, with Mabel and her friends thundering in pursuit.

The five girls collapsed in giggles as soon they closed the door to Dipper and Mabel's room. “That was intense!”, Grenda proclaimed.

“Soooo, how was Gwen’s first kiss?”, Candy inquired, very intrigued.

Gwen smiled nervously. “If that’s how you kiss Dipper, he’s one lucky guy, Pacifica.”

Pacifica was already cleaning her face, revealing the still pretty girl beneath the make-up. “You were my second kiss, Tennyson. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Mabel was astonished. “Pacifica, did you just compliment someone?”

Pacifica slid into Dipper's bed, pulling up the sheets. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. And if any of you ever tell anyone else about tonight, there will be consequences.”

“Don’t you worry your blonde head, Pacifica", Mabel assured her. “Seriously, romance is something I never joke about.”

Gwen sat on the edge of Dipper's bed, cleaning her own face. “You’re okay, Pacifica. For a rich brat.”

Pacifica looked at Gwen, and the others. “For a bunch of pain in the butt townies and tourists, you’re pretty good too”, she admitted.

*-*-*

Soos blinked. “Dudes, what the heck just happened?”

“No clue", Ben offered.

“I think we lost a bet", Dipper said.


	10. Chapter 10

00:25, August 24

Max and his thirty-year-old grand-daughter Gwendolyn walked the quiet streets back to the Twin Bed Motel, Gwendolyn chatting about her life twenty years in the future, her cousin Ben 10,000, and how alien lifeforms now comprised a significant percentage of the population of her timeline's Earth. To Max’s pleasant surprise, Rust-bucket stood at the curb, paint, chrome, and trim gleaming in the light from the streetlamps.

Gwendolyn smiled, a wave of nostalgia overcoming her. “I forgot how good the old girl looked.”

Max leaned in for a closer inspection. “She never looked this good. I bought her third-hand before I handed her over to the Plumbers for modification. Something is definitely off here.”

Gwendolyn fished in a pocket in her tunic, coming up with a key which opened the door without a problem. “Still works", she announced, slightly amazed, as she reached in and turned on the lights, stepping up inside. 

Max looked up at his grand-daughter, framed in the light, wistful. “I used to wonder if I would live long enough to see you grow up. Now? I get to see you at three important stages of your life, lives, I guess…and you’re growing up in ways I could never have imagined. I’m so proud of you, Gwendolyn.”

Gwendolyn paused, then stepped down to hug her grandfather. “I love you, Grandpa Max. I always will.”

Max’s phone vibrated, indicating a message had arrived. He glanced at it: ’Watching movies with Danny & Wendy, might crash on the spare bed. Love, L.’ 

“Can I sleep in the R.V.?”, Gwendolyn asked. “I mean, just one more time?”

Max smiled gently. “Sure. Goodnight, honey.”

“Goodnight, Grandpa.” Gwendolyn entered the vehicle, closing the door behind her and tripping the lock, and moments later the lights behind the curtains winked out. Max slipped out of his shoes, and stood barefoot on the grass, looking up at the stars. 

“Nice night.” Danny’s voice, about eight feet off the ground.

Max didn’t turn to look. He knew Danny would be in his ghost form. “Something on you mind, son?”

“It’s that obvious?”

Max nodded. “Let me guess. Girl trouble?”

“Oh yeah.”

“She mad at you?”, Max inquired.

“Nope.”

“You mad at her?” A long shot.

“Let’s say…surprised.” Danny was evading like a champ. This had to be bad.

Max regarded the grass for a moment. “Work with me, Danny. It’s late, and I’m drawing a blank.”

“Wendy wants us to date Lynn. At the same time. All of us. Dating each other.” Danny waited for the explosion.

“Huh. Wendy being bi was not on my bingo card.”

“Wait! You're not mad? That I’ll be dating your grand-daughter? And Wendy, at the same time?” A soft pulse of white light, and Danny dropped to the ground, human.

Max turned to face him. “I married an alien, had two kids with her. Gwen, Lynn, and Gwendolyn, all have alien blood in them. So Lynn being bi isn’t any kind of shock. She’s a big girl, she can make her own decisions. As long as you’re all honest with each other, you communicate, and you play safe, it’s none of my business.” Max put a hand on Danny's shoulder. “That said, if you, either of you, break her heart, I’ll cheerfully hand what’s left of you over to your parents. Am I crystal clear?”

Danny gulped. “Oh yeah.”

Max patted Danny’s shoulder. “You’re a smart kid. I like you. You have potential, Daniel. Don’t get in your own way, alright?”

Danny nodded. “Thanks for understanding. And not yelling.”

“That took a lot of guts, son. Thank you for being honest with me.” 

The penny dropped for Danny. “Wait, who’s Gwendolyn?!”

*-*-*

Carl Kolchak was dreaming. He had to be. Late afternoon light streamed in through wide windows on the third floor of a walk-up apartment building that revealed a city by the ocean. But not just any city. San Francisco. The Mission Hill district. He sat in a low upholstered chair with wooden frame arms, feet up on an ottoman, a walking stick propped against the chair, in what would generously be called an ‘efficiency suite' by a real estate agency, and what Carl would call a postage stamp sized bachelor pad. He realised was wearing a white linen button-down shirt and a neatly pressed dark brown worsted wool suit.

To his right, an attractive woman he knew, that he knew he knew, sat behind an artist’s drawing table, wearing a soft pale butter yellow shirt and a dark pencil skirt, afternoon light glinting off her glasses. Somehow, he also knew he’d suffered a recent back injury. What Carl didn’t understand was why he felt guilty. And apprehensive.

Something about this entire scenario was as hauntingly, infuriatingly familiar as the apartment’s yellow walls and miniscule galley kitchen…

Carl sat up suddenly, knocking the walking stick over, and tried to catch it. “Ow!”

“I thought you said no more aches and pains", the auburn haired woman said as she worked on a sketch in front of her with practiced strokes of her pencil, rapidly outlining a scantily clad figure for a lingerie advertisement. 

“It’s this damned corset", Kolchak complained. “It binds…” He paused, not quite picking up the fallen stick. He looked up at the woman. “And now you say-"

“No three-way stretch?”, Velma gently teased, still sketching. “How very un-chic”, Carl said simultaneously with her.

Velma looked at him like he’d suddenly grown a third head. “Are you alright, Scottie? Do we need to take you to the doctor?”

“No-no, noooo. I’m fine, just a little…vertigo…” It dawned on Kolchak, and he rose to his feet to pace back and forth excitedly in the small space. “Of course! Vertigo! Jimmy Stewart and Barbara Bel Geddes! Hitchcocķ!”

Velma looked down at the pencil in her hand, frowning. “Johnny-o…It’s a brassiere…you’re a big boy...”, she muttered.

Carl played a hunch. “How’s your love life?”

“That’s following a train of thought", Velma hesitated, watching Carl as he anticipated what she was saying. “And then you say-"

“’Well?’, and Midge says…”, prompted Kolchak.

“None of your damned business!”, Velma grinned, then sobered. “Carl, what the hell is going on?”

“Somehow, I don’t know how, we're sharing a dream”, Carl theorised. “What happens next, what’s the next clue?”, he mused, wishing he’d seen the classic thriller more than once.

“Check your pockets”, Velma suggested. “You should have a phone number for Gavin Elster, in Mission, on Skid Row!”

Carl followed Velma's advice, and found a slip of paper with Elster’s number scrawled on it. “Alright, Mister Gavin Elster, time to have a chat", Carl announced, moving toward the door. Which refused to open.

“Ah-ah-ah! That’s cheating!”, reprimanded Bill Cipher in his high discordant polyphonic voice as he slid through the wall. “You’ve got to follow the script!”

“Jinkies! What are you?”, Velma yelped, bumping into the drawing table as she stepped back, pulling away from the malevolent cyclopean triangle.

“Oh, I’m just your average all-powerful inter-dimensional dream demon”, Bill bragged, turning his single eye on Velma. “And you and your friends, toots, ARE A SERIOUS PAIN IN MY ASS!”, he raged as he flitted in a circuit of the small room. 

“Now, here’s the game, kiddies”, Bill explained, “You’re going to go along with the show. And if you save the girl, you all get to go home. BUT NO CHEATING!! Follow the script.”

“Which girl?”, Velma demanded. “Who do we have to save?”

“Nobody special, just a bit of cosmic debris that washed up in this pathetic dimension”, Bill commented offhand, feigning a lack of interest. “Now then, on with the show! Toodles, kiddies! And remember, I'LL BE WATCHING!!” 

Bill faded from their sight. 

“Now what?”, Carl groused to Velma, loosening his tie.

“Step-ladder.”

“Excuse me?”

“Kitchen step-ladder”, Velma explained while she fetched the item from the kitchen. “I’ve seen every Hitchcock movie half a dozen times. We need to provoke you, that is ‘Scottie', into a vertigo spell.” Velma positioned the step-ladder closer to the window than Carl felt comfortable with.

“Are you absolutely certain there’s no other way to do this?”, Kolchak hesitated.

“No, Carl”, Velma said flatly. “Now get on. I’ll catch you if you fall.”

Kolchak stood on top of the narrow step ladder with more than a little trepidation. “Now what? 

Velma handed Kolchak the walking stick. “Hold it in both hands.” Carl did so.

“Now slowly look up and down three times, and when you look down the fourth time, look out the window into the alley, and the vertigo should hit you.”

Kolchak nodded, grim faced. “I’m look up, I look down. I look up, I look down, I look up, I look down.” He took a deep breath in anticipation. “I look up, I look dow--", and Carl glanced out the window to the alleyway below. So, so far below.

The panic hit him like a punch in the gut, the forced memory ripping at him…

{Tony Vincenzo, wearing a vintage police uniform, holding out his hand desperately, trying to reach Carl to pull him to safety. 

“Give me you hand!”, Tony bellowed. “What’s wrong with you?! Give me your hand!”

A skitter of loose tile, the whisper of shoe leather as Tony slips screaming past Carl, plunging, plummeting to die, smashed on the hard pavement of the filthy alley ten floors below…}

“Carl!”, Velma yelped as Kolchak pitched off the step-ladder, catching him awkwardly before he could land on the magazine cluttered coffee table in front of the dark blue couch, lowering him to the floor.

“Oh damn! Damn it, damn it, damn it!", Carl muttered, panting, sweat beading his flushed forehead, eyes clenched tight. “I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there at the end…”

Velma held Carl, easing his torment, rocking gently back and forth as she held him.

*-*-*

Carl checked in with the security guard at the gate to the shipyard, and followed the guard's directions to the office of one Gavin Elster. Said office was paneled in an opulent dark walnut, with several large glass cases holding elaborate scale models of modern freighters and fishing trawlers. Pictures of historic San Francisco hung from the walls, indicating Elster had a fascination for the days of more unenforced law in the Western frontier. The kind of time and place that would allow a man with wealth and power to get away with, well, just about anything he wanted.

Max Tennyson sat behind the wooden executive desk in an immaculately tailored suit, looking faintly smug and self-satisfied. It was a look that didn’t belong on his face.

Carl looked out at the bustling activity in the shipyard. “How'd you get into shipbuilding?”

Max smirked. “Married into it”, he said with a note of surprising self-awareness.

Carl raised his eyebrows. “Is it an interesting business?”

“Actually, I find it rather dull", Max replied. “I’d rather go back to being a Plumber.”

Carl shot Max a look, scowling.

“Shouldn’t you be sitting down?”, Max suggested.

“No. No, my…acrophobia isn’t a crippling thing. It just means I can’t climb steep stairs, or go to the bar at Top of the Mark", Carl played out the scene. “But there are plenty of bars at street level l can get a drink at.”

“Would you like a drink now?”, Max inquired.

“Yeah. Maybe a Dinkley Special”, Carl replied.

“Oh, thank God”, Max sighed. “I was worried I’d have to play out the whole damn scene, not knowing how deep down the rabbit hole we are.”

“I’m going to guess you got a visit from a malevolent Dorito", Carl smiled sarcastically. Max nodded. “So, how do we play this?”

“’I want you to follow my wife'", Max quoted, winking at Carl. “It’s not what you think. We’re very happily married. I’m afraid some harm might come to her.” A pause while he waited for Carl’s line, waving his hand eventually in a ‘get on with it' rolling motion.

“Oh, right", Carl caught on. “From whom?”

“Someone dead.” Max regarded Kolchak frankly, playing the part. “Scottie, do you believe someone dead, someone out of the past can enter and control the living?

“Sounds like you both need to see a doctor", Kolchak improvised.

“Then you’re of no use to me", Max sighed. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.

Carl felt chagrined. “I didn’t mean to be that rough.”

“It sounds idiotic, and you always were the hard-headed Scot”, Max said. “Do you think I’m making this up?”

“Nooo", Carl remarked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.

Max looked around. “Okay, safe to say I think you've seen ‘Vertigo'. You know where we’re going to be tonight.”

The memory came to Carl. “Ernie's.”

Max nodded. “All right. You don’t know what to look for, and neither do I. ‘Madeline' and I will be at Ernie’s after eight.”

*-*-*

Velma decided to see how far she could go as ‘Midge'. The apartment door opened at her touch, so she tentatively explored, finding her way downstairs to the street, where a dark silver-grey Karmann-Ghia awaited her at the curb. The keys were in her purse. “This is going to make things a lot easier", Velma said, and climbed in, starting the engine.

It was a short drive to the Podesta Baldocci flower shop on Grant Street. Velma found a place to park, then entered the store looking for the sales lady who would be near the rear. 

“Can I help you with your selection?” Velma turned to see who had addressed her, a mature but youthful woman, bright red hair cut in a page boy style with a blue barrette that seemed familiar. She was wearing a slim, dark blue short-sleeved dress that fell just past her knees.

“Umm, yeah", Velma blinked. “I’m looking for something in a poesy."

“I think we have something suitable over here", the woman said, leading Velma out of sight behind a luxuriant flower display, then turning on her once they were out of sight. “What are you doing here?”, she hissed.

“Who dropped sand in your britches?”, Velma quipped, taken aback. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gwendolyn Tennyson. You’re Velma Dinkley, a friend of my Grandpa Max.” 

“Gwen?!”, Velma yipped.

Gwendolyn clapped a hand over Velma’s mouth. “Shhhhh! ‘He' doesn’t know how movies operate. Or dreams for that matter, not really. But I don’t want to attract ‘His' attention, got it?” Velma nodded.

“You’re looking for ‘Madeline', right?”, Gwendolyn said quietly. “I haven't seen her yet, probably won’t for a while, but I can slip her a message in her bouquet when she comes for it.”

“Thanks, Gwen", Velma said. “When we get out of here, dinner is on me.”

“It’s Gwendolyn. But in here, call me Dorothy, alright?”, she pointed out. Then in a louder voice, “Yes, I think this is what you’re looking for. I’ll ring it up for you at the front, if you’ll follow me.” 

Velma trailed Gwendolyn to the sales counter, paid for the small bouquet, then exited the store and drove back to the small apartment.

*-*-*

Ernie's was as elegant as the flowing gold script on the scarlet canopy above the dark oak and glass doors promised. The brilliant red velvet flocked wall paper would have looked at home in the palace of Versailles. Or one of the cheap strip clubs of Las Vegas. 

Carl was feeling rather impressed with himself. He'd gone an entire day, and the pressed line of his suit was still pristine, without the trace of a single wrinkle.

He felt like a phoney.

Ernie's lounge bar was crowded, the dining room even more so, and Kolchak killed the wait to encounter ‘Madeline' by slowly sipping what should have been the finest premium scotch. Instead, he tasted cold bitter tea. ‘Hollywood’, he thought to himself sardonically. ‘Where dreams and young women go to die. What a world.’

He finally saw Max, in his role as Gavin Elster, rise from the table he sat at to escort an attractive young woman in a shimmering black silk Edith Head evening gown with a daring sweetheart neckline that displayed a veritable treasure's worth of cleavage. As ‘Madeline' swept by, he was captivated by the lustrous shine of her elegantly coiffed dark hair and her striking violet eyes, as she was counterpoised just for a moment, the white of her complexion against the searing red of the wallpaper.

Kolchak swallowed audibly.

No wonder Velma was head over heels in love with Marcie.


	11. Chapter 11

Kolchak slouched in the driver’s seat of the white 1957 De Soto Firedome Sportsman Coupe, furtively surveilling the entrance to the stylish Brocklebank Apartments, awaiting the appearance of Marcie Fleach as she carried out her role as ‘Madeline' in Bill Cipher's twisted dreamscape re-run of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller ‘Vertigo’. The single-breasted brown wool suit wouldn’t have been Carl’s choice for autumn in the Bay area, and the coordinating wide-brimmed fedora he wore restricted his field of view. He rustled the newspaper he was supposed to be pretending to read as he kept an eye on the green Jaguar in the small parking area in front of the building's brass and glass double doors.

Carl found it odd to literally be walking a mile in the renowned actor’s shoes. Where Jimmy Stewart loped, Carl scurried. Where Stewart surveilled, Kolchak snooped. Stewart brooded, he sulked.

“Introspection was never your strong suit", he reminded himself, “and usually leads to staring at the bottom of an empty glass late at night.” He opened the newspaper and scoffed. Blank. Velma was right. Bill might be an ‘all-powerful inter-dimensional dream demon’, but he was an idiot when it came to being a competent continuity cop.

Movement at the doors of the apartment caught Kolchak's eye. Marcie, in a knee-length pencil skirt that matched the grey Edith Head single-breasted suit jacket she wore like armor, a black purse dangling from the wrist of the same arm draped by a dark fur stole. She opened the driver’s door of the emerald green 1957 Jaguar Mk VIII, and seated herself with the swivel movement her clothing demanded. 

Marcie pulled out of the parking area, and Kolchak started his own car, missing his light and responsive Mustang. He followed Marcie through the streets of San Francisco, to eventually park in the alley behind the florists shop. Carl exited the De Soto, and entered the back door of the shop, stepping into the shadows…

*-*-*

Marcie stood on the sales floor of Podesta Baldocci, surrounded by extravagant bouquets, wreaths, and floral displays. She felt elegant, statuesque. Desired. A vision of poise, she offhandedly inspected a small bouquet while awaiting attention from the staff. Presently, an attractive red-haired woman with bright green eyes approached her, asking what she needed. Marcie ordered a nosegay of pink roses, and looked around the shop while her order was fulfilled, the entire time feeling like she was being watched.

A cool glance at the mirrored door at the rear of the shop she'd entered through closed just ever so slightly. 

Ah. The patsy.

Good. Time to lead the retired gumshoe on a little goose chase...

*-*-*

Kolchak remembered what was next. A protracted slow-speed chase to build tension, following ‘Madeline’ to the oldest Catholic mission in the city, with it's attendant cemetery. 

He hated cemeteries. Too many zombies, headless bikers, and other horrors. 

He saw Marcie conclude her business, and hurried to be back in the De Soto to play his part in the drama that would eventually lead to an art gallery and the dilapadated McKittrick Hotel.

*-*-* 

Following Marcie through the city went from mildly amusing to a test of endurance as the day wore on. At least when Kolchak was on a story, he had the adrenaline rush of chasing a lead, or confronting Vincenzo. This was torture, as he knew exactly where it was leading. Carl poked along, pretending to stay out of sight, allowing himself to be distracted, inspecting other headstones in the graveyard, as he knew the eventual destination belonged to one Carlotta Valdez, long dead.

The art gallery was slightly better, and Carl took the time to study other works, notably the classic nudes, before collecting the gallery's small catalog from the docent, and finding a note from Velma hidden between the pages that listed the portrait of Carlotta. 

‘I’ll be at the hotel. V.’ 

Carl tucked the note in his pocket, and took the chance to pass behind Marcie at a distance as she sat entranced by the painting. He appreciated that Bill had gone to the effort of having Marcie get her hair styled in the same rosette the portrait of the dead Carlotta showed. Carl left the gallery, and resumed the tedious chase.

The McKittrick Hotel loomed in gentile shabbiness over the residential street, dreaming of it’s former glory. Kolchak climbed out of the De Soto, waiting to see Marcie appear in the window of the room above the lobby before climbing the two flights of steps that led to the front door. He blinked in surprise at the hotel manager who stood behind the desk that dominated the narrow hallway. The once grand stairs leading to the upper floors were to the right.

Carl looked back over his shoulder at the door, confused, then back at the manager. “Didn’t I…Weren’t you just at the flower shop?”

Impish green eyes smiled at Carl from beneath a ginger pixie cut. “Whatever could you mean, Mister Detective?”, Gwendolyn quipped as she wiped a sheen of olive oil on the broad leaves of a rubber plant with a soft cloth. 

“Di-did you see Marcie come in just now?”, Carl asked.

Gwendolyn grinned. “Don’t you mean ‘Miss Valdez’?”

“Damn it, Gwen, I really don’t have time for this!”, Kolchak snapped.

“Relax, Carl. Once you came in the door, an illusion I set up has been concealing all of us from ‘Him'”, Gwendolyn explained. “Velma’s been upstairs waiting for Marcie.”

*-*-*

Marcie slipped out of her high heeled shoes, turning from the window to make a quiet exit down the back stairs, and was confronted by a young woman with dark auburn hair and thick rimmed glasses who stepped out of the rented hotel room's very small bathroom. A woman who was somehow faintly familiar. “Hello, Marcie”, she said.

Marcie put her hand to her chest in dismay. “My name", she said with cool disdain, “Is Madeline Elster. Who are you, and why are you here?”

“Your name is Marcie Fleach. You’re from Crystal Cove, California, and you’re my girlfriend. I’m here to help all of us escape from this nightmare”, Velma informed her. “We need your help.”

“I’ll scream!”, Marcie threatened. “I’ll scream if you don’t get out of here right now!”

“Marcie, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Stop calling me Marcie!"

“You’re Marcie Fleach”, Velma repeated. “Fred, the Fred you knew, along with Daphne and Shaggy, all called you ‘Hot Dog Water'. You’re a brilliant engineer and metalugist.”

“NO!!”, Marcie screeched. “I’m Madeline Elster. My hu-husba…my husband is…no, I’m not…Madeli…I’m Judy…no, I'm…". Confusion warred with fear on Marcie’s face, tears making mascara run down her cheeks. “HELP ME!!”, she screamed at Velma, knees buckling, folding in on herself.

Velma caught her before she collapsed.

“No, Marcie”, Velma consoled her, holding Marcie close. “I’ve got you. You're safe.” Gentle kisses. “You’re my girl. I love you. But right now I, we need you to pull it together and help us all get out of here.”

Carl and Gwendolyn looked on with concern from the doorway.

Carl was grim with determination. “I don’t know how, yet, but I’m going to kill Bill Cipher”, he vowed.

Gwendolyn put a cautionary hand on Kolchak's arm, her green eyes staring into his brown ones. “Carl, Bill is a god for all intents and purposes.”  
Kolchak scoffed. “He won’t be the first one I brought down.” 

“Velma, talk some sense into Kolchak”, Gwendolyn pleaded.

“Kolchak is three-nil on god-slaying, Gwendolyn, maybe more”, Velma replied. “My money is on him.” 

*-*-*

Velma and Carl were back in Midge's Mission Hill apartment. Carl sat on the couch with a drink in hand, hat tipped back, suit coat discarded over the back of a chair, tie loosened, looking and feeling exhausted. Velma was in the galley kitchen, pouring a drink for herself.

“I thought you had the tolerance of a diabetic mouse”, Carl commented.

“Fuck off, Carl! I’ve had a rotten day”, Velma snapped, stomping to perch stiffly on the chair beside the couch.

Kolchak had the good sense to be chagrined. He took a sip of the drink to gather his thoughts. ”How’s Marcie doing?”

Velma gulped down her drink with a grimace. “As well as can be expected, I guess. She’s had quite a shock.”

Kolchak nodded, eyebrows raised. “She tell you anything?”

Velma sighed. “She blames herself. She’s convinced it’s her fault Bill exists in the first place. Combine that with her massive survivor's guilt, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.” Velma's shoulders slumped, hands between her knees. “Max and Gwendolyn are looking after her at the hotel, making sure she gets some sleep.” She looked up at Carl. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.” 

Carl patted Velma on the knee in sympathy. “That wasn’t yelling. You're a babe in woods compared to Tony Vincenzo. Now, there was a man who knew how to yell", Carl reminisced, raising his glass in a nostalgic toast. “God bless you, Tony.”

They sat for a moment in silence.

“What’s next?”, Carl inquired.

“The Argosy book store and Pop Liebel”, Velma informed him, a note of weariness in her voice. “I’ll get my coat.”

Carl sighed, rising with a slight groan. “Once more unto the breach…”

*-*-*

It was full dark by the time Carl and Velma arrived at the Argosy Bookshop in the silver-grey Karmann-Ghia. 

The bell over the door jangled as they entered the cluttered shop.

“It's about time you idiots got here", Vaggie commented dryly, arms crossed. At least, they thought it was Vaggie.

Gone was Vaggie’s dusky Salvadoran colouring, replaced by a pale dusty grey. Her white hair was still the same floor-sweeping length, but now sporting a band of pale pink near the ends. Vaggie glared at them, her eye now pale red with a yellow pupil instead of the odd but still human amber they were used to. Small predator sharp teeth filled her sarcastic smile. Somehow, she look both intimidating and adorable in the tweed jacket she wore.

Carl flinched back a half step. 

“What? You don’t like seeing a girl without her make-up?”, Vaggie mock-pouted. 

“Vaggie?”, Velma asked, a note of disbelief in her voice. “You’re a…?”

“Demon? Hell-spawn? A soul condemned to eternal damnation in the blazing pit?”, Vaggie recited, arms sweeping wide with a dramatic flourish, eye blazing with hellish light. That winked out when Vaggie dropped her arms back to her sides abruptly. “Yeah, that got old real fast.”

Vaggie hopped up to sit on the wooden sales counter like a hellish schoolgirl. “Let’s get on with it, okay? I can't stick around in this snooze-fest forever.”

Carl felt as if his train of thought has jumped several tracks and derailed in a spectacular explosion. “But what about…?”

“Bill?”, Vaggie laughed. “That overheated douche-nugget is due an epic ass-kicking. He’s got no real power in the dream world, only what you give him.

“I bought drinks? From a demon?”, Kolchak gawked. “I consumed alcohol prepared by a minion of Satan?”

Vaggie snapped her fingers to get his attention. “Yo! Ink-slinger! Snap out of it! We don’t have time to indulge your prejudices -or- fantasies. Besides, I’m fucking Lucifer’s daughter, Charlie. Trust me, you are so not my type.” 

“What are you doing here?”, Velma demanded. “Not just here, in this dream, but in Gravity Falls?”

Vaggie rolled her eye. “Un-fucking-believable. I tell them were on a deadline, but noooo, the monkeys want an explanation. Fine.

“Bill wants access to your reality. If that happens, he -will- fuck you up. You idiots have a part to play in making sure that doesn’t happen. As for why I’m here, Hell is so over-crowed recently by greedy, selfish, fucked-up humans that we have scheduled genocidal purges. My girlfriend Charlie would rather redeem some of you assholes once you arrive to alleviate the problem, but I’m here to cut off a fucking tsunami that would crush us before it happens.

“So, if it’s not too much of an inconvenience, CAN WE PLEASE GET THE FUCK ON WITH THE SHOW?!”, Vaggie snarled the last part of her comments at sufficient volume that the window glass shivered.

“Wait. You have a girlfriend?”, Kolchak asked Vaggie, incredulous.

The priceless gilt-edged hardbound first edition folio of Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ hit Carl square in the face.


	12. Chapter 12

Max Tennyson ran a hand through his grey crew cut. “Jesus, Carl, what the hell happened to you?”

Carl collapsed into the chair next to Max’s in the private gentleman's club. Tuxedoed staff circulated quietly, and Kolchak signaled one to bring him a drink. After a deep appreciative swallow, he spoke, wincing only slightly. “Somebody threw the book at me.”

Max raised a curious eyebrow.

“Literally.”

“How’s our little mystery coming?, Max inquired.

“Oh fine, fine. By this point we know Madeline is supposedly obsessed with an ancestor long dead, betrayed and abandoned by her lover, eventually taking her own life.” Kolchak leaned over the arm of his chair conspiratorially. “By the way, did you know suicides are never buried in consecrated ground in Catholic cemeteries? Whoever wrote the script screwed up. Big time.”

“Anything else useful?”

“Vaggie pitches southpaw.”

Max pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s next on the agenda?”

Kolchak passed the art gallery catalog to Max. “You might find this interesting.”

Max studied the marked page. “You’re right. Very interesting indeed. I’ll get right on this.”

Carl finished his drink and stood up. “Where are you off to?”, Max asked.

“Following Marcie to the art gallery again, and then out to the Presidio in time for her swimming lesson”, Kolchak remarked with a frown. “Driving all over town, and I’m not getting a cent in mileage or expenses for this gig.”

Kolchak was getting slightly more comfortable driving the big De Soto, and he eased it into a parking space at the gallery smoothly, then alighted from the car, strode through the gallery past the Rodin sculpture, walked right past behind Marcie in her dark blue dress with its full skirt, tossing a small tightly folded note onto the bench beside her which she swept up with a casual motion, and immediately departed to sit in his car to kill time until he had to follow Marcie to the seawall under the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge. 

*-*-*

Marcie resisted the urge to speed during the drive to Fort Winfield Scott on the Presidio. She parked, climbed out of the green Jag, careful to leave the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked, just as Velma's note had suggested. Seconds saved now would save her life later. She walked to the waters edge, and nervously shredded the paper lace points that wrapped the stems of the pink rose nosegay, tossing first the pieces of paper and then the blossoms into the dark green choppy San Francisco Bay, counting down the seconds.

It was time. She gritted her teeth and jumped. “Shit!”

The water was colder than she expected, the chill driving the breath from her lungs, and she inhaled reflexively. Choking, thrashing, she started to sink…

Another body plunged into the water. Carl.

Kolchak hauled Marcie out of the water onto the stone steps that led down from the seawall. She wasn’t breathing. “Don’t do this to me! Velma will goddamn kill me if you die me on me”, he panted, shivering, lifting Marcie underneath her arms, dragging her up the steps to the paved walkway, then applied chest compressions and rescue breathing until Marcie coughed and vomited up the water in her lungs, gasping miserably.

“Geez, Carl, go easy on the girls", Marcie whined, covering her breasts with her hands.

Carl sat back in a heap. “I lost my hat going in after you”, he complained. 

A rigid middle finger raised in Kolchak's direction was Marcie's rational argument in response. 

“Let's get you in the car", Kolchak grumbled, climbing to his feet and helping Marcie up. His sodden boxers were already starting to bunch and chafe uncomfortably. 

The drive to Scottie’s apartment was made with the heat blasting on full, and they were both chilled until after hot showers for both of them. Carl dressed in grey flannel trousers, a white button down shirt, and a green v-neck sweater. Marcie handed out her salt crusted clothes to be rinsed and hung to dry, then collapsed naked into Scottie’s bed. Carl pulled the covers up over her and went to the living room to wait until she woke up.

The smell of hot coffee roused Marcie, and she staggered into the living room, her brunette hair a tangled nest, the deep red satin nightgown loosely belted, the gap revealing a tantalizing flash of bare thigh and sway of breast as she slumped onto the stool in front of the fireplace. 

“Ugh. Gimme", Marcie mumbled, curling her fingers possessively to summon a cup of coffee. The heat from the fire was a comfort. Kolchak poured her a cup, passing it and a bowl of sugar cubes. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling, fair lady?”

“Like a used teabag, ‘Henry Higgins'.” Marcie took a sip of coffee, grimaced. “Oh god. This makes the stuff Lazy Susan serves taste like heaven. This is awful!”

“If you think that’s bad, don’t try the booze”, Carl muttered with raised eyebrows. “I owe Black Pony an apology.”

“Hairpins.” 

“Hah?”

“Hairpins", Marcie repeated, palm out.

“Oh, oh right", Carl clued in, passing them over. 

Marcie lifted a lock of her hair, irritated. “I fight with it at the best of times. This is a disaster. Salt water, then falling asleep on wet hair. I'm going be pulling knots out for a week.”

“You…weren’t playing along at the McKittrick. You behaved like you thought you actually were Madeline Elster”, Kolchak observed. “Velma said you felt responsible for us being in this…whatever it is we're stuck in.”

Marcie scowled, tugging a comb through the snarls in her hair. “Don’t interrogate me, Carl. I'm barely hanging on as it is.”

Carl leaned forward, relentless. “We're behind the eight ball, playing defence, Marcie. Anything you can give us might be the edge we need to survive this.”

Marcie sighed in resignation, slapping the comb on the coffee table. “Fine! Fine!”, she snapped. “You want information, all the juicy details? Fine!

“Bill Cipher pops up in my dreams, telling me I’m his creator, because I lost the piece of the Planispheric Disc in the null-time non-space between dimensions, and from his appearance what with being a triangle with one eye in the same place the Disc fragment had a circular crystal lens, I’m inclined to believe him. 

“He tells me he can fix everything, keep Velma safe, all I have to do is play along, make a deal. Yeah right, I’ve heard that one before, and all it cost me was my entire world, and the person, the woman I loved more than life!

“So when Bill makes the same play, makes the same offer that killed Velma the first time, yeah, I checked out. Why shouldn’t I be glamorous, desired? Just once!”, Marcie demanded, lower lip quivering.

“Marcie", Carl interrupted gently. “The person in the part you’re playing ends up dead.”

“Don’t you think I know that!!”, Marcie howled at Kolchak. “What’s one stupid girl, compared to everyone else on the planet?!”

The door to the apartment closed. “You’re not stupid.”

Marcie looked up, shocked.

“I heard everything", Velma said, putting down her purse. “You better stop putting yourself down, or we are going to have an argument. I hate arguments.

“Bill lies. About everything. Then he lies about his lies.

“Stop being a chump, Marcie, and be the intelligent, resourceful, creative, amazing woman I love.”

Marcie scrambled to her feet, launching herself at her girlfriend, clinging to her tightly. “I’m sorry, V. I'm so sorry! I’m all screwed up”, she sobbed.

Velma kissed Marcie gently. “Stop being so hard on yourself. No-one is perfect. So stop expecting yourself to be perfect.”

“Yuh-yuh-yuh-you’re p-perfect", Marcie sobbed, hiccupping. “Yuh-yuh-yuh-you always *sniff* wuh-were!”

The phone in the bedroom rang. Embarrassed at witnessing Marcie’s emotional outburst, Kolchak shuffled into the bedroom to answer it.

“Yeah?”

“Carl? Max. Velma was right.”

Kolchak blew out a breath in relief. “That’s great. Let’s just hope the girl genius hangs together long enough to put it to use.”

“How’s she doing?”

Carl ran his fingers through his hair. “Honestly? Marcie is a muslin bag of eggshells in a rock tumbler. One more good shock might finish the job.”

Silence for a moment.

“Protect her, Carl. Bill is scared of her for a reason.”

Kolchak replaced the handset in its cradle.

The living room was empty, Marcie’s clothes gone.

Kolchak sighed. “Shit.” 

*-*-*

The next day. The pointless looping tour of the city that led back to Scottie’s apartment, the drive out to the redwoods and the shore, all passed in a fatiguing blur. Everyone on edge, knowing what was coming.

Velma stood in front of the easel, paintbrush slashing as she applied the colours in a fury. She barely heard the apartment door open and close. Carl tentatively poked his head into sight.

Velma's eyes shot daggers at him. “Did you fuck her?”, she demanded.

“Excuse me?”, Carl blurted, surprised at the venom in Velma's voice. 

“Did. You. Sleep. With. My. Girlfriend?!”, Velma enunciated in cold fury, stabbing at the painting with her brush.

Marcie rounded the corner. “No, he didn’t. Carl was a perfect gentleman. He played solitaire while I crashed in the bed, and he slept on the couch.” She appraised the painting on the easel. “Now stop being a jealous bitch. You’re the only one I get sweaty over. Or with. Ooo, nice! This should be on the wall at home.”

Carl peeked. A classic portrait in style, depicting Velma in place of Carlotta, as Midge had done in the script. Velma’s more…substantial…charms did amazing things to the bodice of the blue dress in the picture.

Velma exhaled, a long shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, Carl. I-"

He waved her off. “Don’t sweat it. Everyone’s feeling a little tense. We only have a few more scenes, and then we can blow this pop stand and get out of here.”

“And then what?”, Velma quietly demanded.

Kolchak stared out the window. “Then we find Bill Cipher, and as the kids today say, we rip him a new ass. In the meantime, Marcie has some news.”

Velma looked at her lover, slightly apprehensive. Marcie kissed the tip of her nose. “Down, girl. Max and I have been comparing notes. And he’s been a busy little bee at the shipyard.”

Velma blinked. “The shipyard! Why?”

“Orichalcum!”, Kolchak exclaimed, shifting into his expository mode, waving an index finger for emphasis. “The divine metal of fabled Atlantis, long sought by alchemists, and at least one middling attempt to recreate it was used for Roman pocket change.”

“It's also what the Planispheric Disc was made of”, Marcie added. “It’s a unique alloy of copper and cadmia zinc oxide. Highly conductive.”

“And the shipyard has tons of both for making ships corrosion resistant!”, Velma exclaimed. “Marcie, you’re brilliant!”

“You should see what I can do with a banana", Marcie winked at Carl. Velma blushed.

“Not even gonna ask", Kolchak muttered, hand over his eyes, head back.

Velma wrapped her arms around Marcie’s waist. “I'm not excited about you and Carl driving down the coast.”

“I’ll be fine, V. Kolchak is strictly hands off after the bay incident.”

A thought struck Velma. “Aren’t we blowing continuity to hell, having ‘Madeline’ hang out with ‘Scottie' and ‘Midge'? 

“Tah-dah!”, Marcie exclaimed, holding up a yellow-white pendant about the size of a silver dollar, with a deeply incised complex sigil cast into it’s surface. “Courtesy of Madame Gwendolyn, mistress of the mystic arts! It’s a charm that shields you from Bill, while casting a glamour that uses your memories of the movie that makes you look you’re playing along. And the more of them in one place, the stronger the glamour. This one is yours. Never take it off.” Marcie placed the talisman on it's fine chain around Velma's neck.

“Jinkies!”

Carl had returned to staring out the window, brooding, pensive.

“I know that look, Carl", Velma said. “Spill.”

“Does anyone else have any reservations about using magical amulets, forged in a dream by the eldest of a triumvirate of witches, using the flames of hell conjured by a demon?”, Kolchak mused.

“You’ve been drinking beer poured by Vaggie for weeks, Carl.”

Kolchak nodded, a moue on his face, admitting the point, and returned to staring out the window.

*-*-*

Kolchak down-shifted, the Jaguar sedan's engine growling throatily as he swung it through the turn. 

‘MISSION SAN JUAN BAUTISTA – 3 MILES', the road sign had said.

Kolchak and Marcie paced themselves, wandering through the restored mission's stables, marking time until ‘Madeline' was fated to climb the stairs to the belfry. 

“Everything ready?”, Carl inquired.

Marcie nodded, glasses flashing in the sun. “Max is already in position with the mannequin.”

“Then I guess it’s showtime”, Kolchak smiled, tight-lipped. “Good luck.”

Marcie touched him on the arm. “You too.” Then she turned and hurried along the crushed stone path to the doors of the bell tower. 

Kolchak paused, then followed her. Marcie was already two flights of steps ahead of him. Three by the time he'd reached the top of the first flight, a faint uneasy, and now too familiar feeling fluttering in his stomach. 

Halfway up the tower, and the window. Any second now.

Marcie screamed, and a second later, a female form in a grey Edith Head skirt and jacket ensemble plunged past the window to land on the terracotta tile roof with an ugly, smashing finality. 

He'd known it was coming. And it still knocked the breath out of him.

Now came the hard part.


	13. Chapter 13

The coroners inquest into the death of ‘Madeline Elster' was a farce wrapped in a sham. A parade of stuffed shirts and ‘witnesses' who had as firm a grasp on the events of the night in question as a drunk had on his money during a bender.

The wooden chair Carl was sentenced to was only just one step shy of the office chair Toby Determined had offered him to sit in all those weeks ago. It didn’t help matters that the coroner was a slight man with a distinctive reedy voice and a receding hairline that bore a striking resemblance to Captain Julian Wells of the MV Hanover on that fateful, fatal swinging-singles holiday cruise that had a stowaway werewolf aboard. Both the werewolf and the cruise ship were history. Or would be.

Kolchak tried to imitate Jimmy Stewart’s calm implacable demeanor, having to almost physically restrain himself from yelling at the various experts and witnesses during their testimony for being the unimaginative imbeciles they presented themselves as.

To distract himself, he studied the members of the coroner's jury and the assembled observers. A familiar face in the crowd made him do a startled double-take.

Gwendolyn Tennyson. In a nun’s habit, veil, and wimple that would have caused Mother Teresa to either spontaneously combust or drop dead in shocked outrage. 

In due course, the verdict was announced as an accidental death, and Carl as ‘Scottie’ was free to go. Max Tennyson, in his final appearance in his role of Gavin Elster, approached Kolchak as he stood by one of the windows. 

“You ready for the next scene?”, Max asked quietly. 

Kolchak nodded. “I’m not thrilled with it.”

“Just remember you’ve got friends on the outside.”

“How’s the plan coming?” Kolchak looked at the worn wooden floorboards.

“Drawing the wire thin enough is proving to be a headache”, Max explained. “We’ve all been pilfering the needed components we think we can modify to suit our purposes.”

“And my party favor?”

“Already taken care of.”

They shook hands. “Take care of yourself, Carl.”

*-*-*

The nightmare. A twisted fantasy inside an already fractured mindscape, images of horrific creatures from his past, lurid bouquets of flowers that shattered like frozen blood, Tony Vincenzo tangled in window blinds falling to his death in a filthy alley, tantalizing half-naked glimpses of women he knew, desired, was denied, and Ron Updike laughing with Bill Cipher's hellish polyphony, golden eyes slitted like a cat’s, taunting him, calling him Kol-sack.

He jolted awake with a scream.

*-*-*

Dappled sunlight filtered through the window in the room of the sanitarium, bright and cheery as the Mozart playing on a portable phonograph.  
Velma perched on the bed, regarding Kolchak with concern as he sat in a vinyl upholstered hospital armchair. 

“Are you sure you couldn’t find any Howlin' Wolf or B.B. King?”, Carl inquired, more moody than usual.

“Mozart is all you get. Sorry", Velma shrugged apologetically. 

The music continued to play, Carl and Velma sitting, looking each other.

“It was that bad?”, Velma finally inquired.

“Years, decades in the news business", Kolchak said. “Wars, revolutions, murder, mayhem. All of it. Slept like a baby. Vampires, aliens, ghosts, zombies, demons? Piece of cake. Now look at me! One bad dream, and I’m a resident of Shady Acres Giggle Academy. Do I sound looney-tunes to you?”

Velma stared at Carl, expressionless.

“Okay, maybe not the best question to ask", he admitted glumly.

“Cheer up, Carl”, Velma said as she stood up. “As soon as I’m done here, it’s all hands on deck to kick Bill's ass.”

They both looked at the door as it opened to admit a red-haired nurse. Velma winked at Carl and high-fived the nurse on the way out the door. “Tag!”

Kolchak stared at Gwendolyn, every inch a hypochondriac’s fantasy of what a personal nurse would look like. “I’m not sure who needs their head examined more in this cockamamie dream. And I’m not entirely sure I want to know.”

“I'm only thirty, and I'm not a witch”, Gwendolyn said primly. “Now behave, or you won’t get your sponge bath.”

Kolchak crossed his arms, studying Gwendolyn. “I honestly don’t understand what makes you tick.”

“Oh?” Gwendolyn busied herself changing the sheets on the hospital bed.

“You’re young, smart, talented, and could have your pick of men", Carl observed dryly. “So why are you flirting with someone almost twice your age?”

Gwendolyn leaned over the bed, supporting herself with both arms.

“Because you’re not scared of me.”

“Lady, the fact you use magic scares the hell out of me.”

Gwendolyn walked around the end of the bed. “But you’re not scared of -me-", she emphasized.

“Well, no, not technically…”, Carl waffled. “It’s just that…well, frankly, the whole women’s lib thing for me was yesterday, not settled. Not, not that I’m against women’s lib!”, he clarified hastily.

“Carl, you can be a chauvinist at times, but you’re polite, mostly, and you’re chivalrous, and for all your bluster, you actually care about people.”

“Well, that is to say…”, he evaded.

Gwendolyn kissed him.

“I'm a grouch”, he warned her.

“Mm-hmm”, she smiled gently.

“And I drink too much.”

“Take up a hobby.” Gwendolyn kissed him again.

“I snore…A-and I’m a lousy cook!”, Kolchak advised her, but less forcefully.

Gwendolyn whispered in his ear. 

He looked at her, slightly scandalized yet amused. “Really?”, he wondered.

She nodded.

“Well in that case…”, he pulled her into his lap for some serious romancing.

*-*-*

Velma stepped into the attending physician’s office. 

“How’s Carl doing?”, Max asked.

“You look like a mad scientist in a ‘B' movie", Velma quipped, looking at Max Tennyson as he stood there in a white lab coat. 

“Says the young woman dressed like she’s on the way to her own funeral. And you dodged the question.”

“Kind of appropriate, what with this being the last time we see ‘Midge' on screen, don’t you think?”, Velma observed. “Carl will be just fine.”

The gleam in Velma’s eye worried Max. “Why do I have the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Toodles!”, Velma chuckled, opening the office door. “Marcie said she’s meeting me out of frame.”

Max shook his head. “I’ll be glad when we get out of here.”

*-*-*

Carl wandered the streets after he was discharged, noting with interest the cars he saw from time to time with their hood up. Several street sign posts had been hack-sawed off, and more than one neon sign needed repairs. Street and traffic lights weren’t spared the pilferage either, as were numerous expensive transistorised radios in the city. 

Someone, or several someone’s, were engaging in what the US military referred to as ‘midnight requisitions'. 

Kolchak smiled in amusement, shook his head, wandering down the street the Baldocci flower shop was on, waiting.

There she was. Looking as desirable as she first had been in Ernie's, the green soft knit sweater dress clinging to her figure in exactly the opposite way the grey Edith Head ensemble had shielded her, wavy brunette hair loose and flowing.

Marcie waved a cheerful goodbye the small group of women she’d been walking with. Kolchak followed her at a discrete distance as she made her way through the streets of San Francisco to an only slightly rundown residential apartment, the kind lived in by those on their way up in the world. Or on their way out. He waited until he saw Marcie in the window on the second floor, then entered the hotel, bypassing the desk clerk, walked down the cloyingly green-painted hallway with its threadbare carpet, and knocked on her door.

Marcie opened the door, violet eyes mischievous behind her glasses. “If you don’t get out of here, I’ll scream", she giggled, and stepped out of the way so Carl could enter the small room. “God, I really understand why Kim Novak went bra-less after being strapped into that Edith Head monstrosity.” She struck a defiant pose, chin up, hands on hips. “Freedom!”, she called dramatically.

Carl chuckled as he sat on the bed. “Indeed.”

Marcie bounced onto the bed beside him. “Dinner?”

Kolchak nodded. “Ernie's. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

Marcie smiled amiably. “Scoot. I have to write the Dramatic Confession Letter.”

*-*-*

Ernie’s was just as crowded as before, the lounge bar just as busy. Carl and Marcie were seated in the dining room at a table across from each other. Marcie’s lavender dress highlighted her violet eyes, and revealed a daring décolletage. She was looking dubiously at the steak on the plate in front of her.

“How is it?”

Carl chewed for a moment, swallowed. “As good as you remember.”

Marcie pondered his statement for a moment, staring at her plate. “Huh. This is all a dream. So the steak can only taste as good as my memory of the best steak I ever had.”

“Say that bit again!”, Kolchak blurted.

“The steak can only taste as good as my memory?”

Kolchak slapped the table in exclamation, making the silverware jump, and causing the water in their glasses to ripple. “That’s it! That’s how we beat Bill!” He craned his neck, scanning the room for familiar faces, spotting them soon enough. Max and Gwendolyn were at a table nearby, Velma in an evening dress at the bar, and to no surprise, Vaggie bartending.

“Carl, what has gotten into you?”, Marcie hissed at him.

He fixed a determined, almost smug eye on Marcie. “We're going to beat Bill at his own game! Is your outfit ready?”

Marcie shook her head. “Not for another couple of days, at least. Then testing, calibration, final adjustments…”

“You don’t need them!”, Carl explained. “You know this stuff backwards and forwards. You can do it in your sleep!”

“Well, yes, but-", and the penny dropped for Marcie. “Do it in my sleep! Of course. Carl, you're a genius!”

Carl stood up, meal forgotten, and scurried over to Max and Gwendolyn. “C'mon! We’re bugging out!” Marcie hurried in his wake as he collected Velma and Vaggie in similar hurried fashion.

“What’s going on, Carl?”, Velma demanded once they were outside on the sidewalk.

“This is a dream!” Kolchak stared at his friends, intent, slightly manic. “Don’t you get it! It’s -our- dream, our collective dream! And what are dreams made of?”

“Thought impulses”, Max mused. “Fragments of memory.”

“Right!”, Carl crowed, pointing at Max. “But not just memories! Impressions, fears, aspirations! Imagination!”

Velma was thinking, concentrating, collating information. “We’ve been going about this all wrong!”, she exclaimed. “Carl’s right! This is a collective dream, accessing all of our memories, all of our imaginations!”

“I don’t want to be the killjoy", Vaggie pointed out, “Don’t forget Bill is a demon.”

Gwendolyn grinned. “Exactly. How much imagination do demons have?”

Vaggie shrugged. “They’re impulsive, impetuous, inventive…”

“And you just said ‘they're', as in they, them, not you. You weren’t born in hell were you, Vaggie?”

Vaggie clapped a delicate hand to her mouth in shock. 

“How do you feel about raising some hell for the good guys, Vaggie?”


	14. Chapter 14

“Now we’re getting somewhere!”, Carl Kolchak pronounced, rubbing his hands together, a crafty look in his eye. “I was afraid my brain was turning to mush, waiting for something to happen.”

“Uhh, Carl?”, Velma interrupted. “Why aren't you dressed like Jimmy Stewart any more?”

Kolchak inspected himself quickly. Gone was Stewart’s dapper suit, polished shoes, pressed shirt and silk tie. Rumpled pale seersucker now draped Kolchak over a wash and wear permanent press shirt, battered white tennis shoes on his feet, and a grievously abused straw hat replaced the stylish fedora.

“I though I was feeling more myself just now", Kolchak grinned, adjusting the straps supporting his camera and tape recorder. 

“Good man!”, Max Tennyson chortled, his evening wear replaced in a ripple of light by a garish red Hawaiian shirt with vivid orange blossoms.

Velma snapped her fingers. Instantly she was dressed in her signature orange turtleneck and burgundy skirt, sensible Mary-Janes on her feet. “I get it!”

“It’s our dream. We control it", Gwendolyn nodded. She spread her arms dramatically, her evening dress transformed into her mages clothes, capes and charms intact.

“We believed Bill when he said we had to play out the movie as it was scripted", Carl expounded. “We believed we had to play the game by his rules. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m gonna cheat.”

The street outside Ernie's shifted, melting and flowing like a sandcastle abandoned to the surging tide, and two succeeding waves revealed the Mission San Juan Bautista on the night of Judy Barton’s final curtain call. They watched as Jimmy Stewart in his role as Scottie, driven by self-righteous anger dragged Kim Novak's Judy Barton remade by twisted obsession, up the rickety steps of the bell tower, badgering the truth of the real Madeline Elster’s death out of her, only to watch Judy plunge to her death in mute horror.

The show was over.

“YOU LOSE, KOL-SACK!!”, Bill Cipher exulted as he flew an orbit of the belfry, taunting the tortured figure balanced on the precipice of loss and horror. “YOU LET THE GIRL DIE, AND NOW YOU AND YOUR CREW OF LOSERS ARE TRAPPED IN THE DREAMSCAPE!”

Kolchak whistled sharply with his fingers. “Hey, asshole!”

Bill's single eye snapped to face him in disbelief. 

“YOU CHEATED!!”, Bill screamed in outrage to Kolchak's face, hellish flames erupting in the outline of his other-worldly geometrical form, eye blazing in negative.

Kolchak shrugged indifferently. “Play with the bull, you get the horns.”

“It doesn’t matter. The little bitch is still dead, and you lose!”, Bill gloated, hanging in mid-air in precisely the same way bricks don’t.

A throaty chuckle responded softly in the atmosphere around them. “Oh, how many times can you be utterly wrong in one sentence, pendejo?”, Vaggie purred as she took two shimmering steps into existence.

“Your on the wrong side of this dogfight, sister!", Bill blustered. “Join the winning team and we'll rule this pathetic dimension! I’ll let you keep Kol-sack as a pet!”

Vaggie paused, eye glancing up as she considered Bill's offer. “Ooooo. So tempting…”, she purred, then turned on Bill, all spite and fury, harpoon at the ready. “How about you go fuck yourself!!” 

“I’ll seal you in here with them! You’ll eat their faces before a week is up!”, Bill screeched in his polyphonic voice. “I'll—AAAAAGH!!!”, he shrieked, jolting, ripping, tearing. And reforming behind and beyond the group.

“YOU!! NO!! IMPOSSIBLE!! YOU’RE DEAD!!”

Marcie stood where Bill had just been, statuesque and magnificent in her Dark Lilith winged battlesuit. The halberd in her hand had the wedge of the lost Planispheric Disc as it’s axe blade. “You’ll find the reports of my death to be greatly exaggerated.”

Max Tennyson was now armed with the cannon he had obliterated Vilgax with. “I’m gonna rip you a new hole, pita-chip”, he promised.

Bill Cipher knew fear. 

He didn’t like it. At all.

He turned to escape, only to be blocked, barred, prevented. Trapped. By lines and wards of primal magical energy set by Gwendolyn.

“NOOOOOOO!”, he howled.

“Oh yes!”, Kolchak exulted. “You screwed up, Billy-boy! You made three colossal mistakes, blunders on a cosmic scale!” Kolchak counted them off on his fingers, gloating.

“One: You threatened a man’s family.”

“Two: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Kolchak held up a slim dark object in his hand.

“And three…” He paused.

“Never fuck with a guy from Chicago.” Quiet menace in Carl’s tone.

The orichalcum switchblade snapped open.

Bill’s scream ratcheted up in ripping discordance as he shredded in black static, fleeing from sight.

Max Tennyson chuckled, fading away. “See you on the outside.”

“Sweet dreams, Carl", Velma smiled, holding Marcie's hand as they too faded. “G'night, Carl", Marcie’s voice whispered in a quiet echo.

Vaggie gently punched Carl in the shoulder. “See you in hell, amigo”, she nodded, disappearing in a shimmer of pale flame.

Kolchak turned to regard the only person left.

“I suppose you’re going to make a bittersweet little speech about how this is all a dream, and you’re gone too”, he muttered. “And ya know, I don’t blame you.”

“You mean a Casablanca ending, and leave you standing in the swirling fog until the picture fades to black?”, Gwendolyn smirked.

Kolchak nodded.

“Breakfast. You're buying”, Gwendolyn poked him in the ribs. “And I meant what I said.”

Carl was pleasantly shocked. “You mean…?”

Gwendolyn nodded.

Carl grinned. “It’s a date!”

Gwendolyn took both of Carl’s hands in hers. “Come find me.”

“Where?” 

Gwendolyn grinned, giddy as a schoolgirl. “You know where.”

“I don’t want to wake up. Not and find you not there", Carl admitted.

Gwendolyn kissed him. “Consider that your wake up call.”

*-*-*

03:28, August 24

Someone was pounding on the door. 

Max Tennyson blinked wearily. He stumbled, half-awake to the door in his sleep pants and a T-shirt, fumbling the it open to reveal Velma and Marcie standing there in their nightclothes.

“Hi girls. C'mon in…” He wandered back to bed, idly rubbing his chest where his pendant hung on it’s chain. 

He snapped to full awareness, staring at the eldritch talisman.

“Us too”, Velma said, holding up her own pendant.

Outside, the distinct throaty purr of a vintage Mustang announced the arrival of Carl Kolchak. They expected him to burst through the door, but nothing happened for several minutes.

A polite tapping at the door, ‘shave-and-a-haircut'. The door opened, and Gwendolyn and Carl entered together, she in a large T-shirt over her panties, he in dress pants and an unbuttoned shirt. Carl fairly buzzed with barely controlled energy.

“Now, I don’t expect you to believe me”, Carl began, “But I swear I just had the most incredible down-the-rabbit-hole, whacked-out ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Wizard of Oz' phantasmagorical dream!“

“We were all in ‘Vertigo', and you were Jimmy Stewart”, Velma confirmed.

“Say, that’s right", Carl nodded, the wind taken out of his sails. “And I woke up with…”

“An orichalcum pendant?”, Marcie finished the sentence.

“Marcie's banana trick", Max nodded. Marcie blushed.

“We kicked Bill Cipher's ass", Gwendolyn beamed.

Max studied Carl for a moment. “Spill it.”

“Hah?”

“Don’t play dumb, Kolchack. Out with it.”

Carl cleared his throat, shuffling his feet, looking at Max, Gwendolyn, Velma and Marcie, the lamp. “Out with…with…news, that is to say…”, he prevaricated, looking as guilty as the cat beneath an empty birdcage.

“What Carl is utterly failing to say, Grandpa, is that we're dating”, Gwendolyn announced.

Max blinked. “I’m getting too old for this.”


	15. Chapter 15

August 24

Max Tennyson, dressed in a clean Hawaiian shirt, sipped his coffee. 

Seated in the corner booth of Yumberjacks was his granddaughter Lynn, next to her boyfriend Danny Fenton, and Wendy Corduroy, who was dating both Lynn and Danny. Carl Kolchak was almost looking respectable beside Gwendolyn. Velma Dinkley was between Gwendolyn and Marcie Fleach. Chatter around the table was light-hearted congratulatory teasing about relationship announcements, combined with observations and commentary about the lurid shared dream experienced of the previous night.

“So, Danny”, Kolchak chuckled, “What’s it like waking up between two gorgeous ladies?”

“Awkward. I had to go ghost just to slip out to use the john”, Danny blushed. Wendy and Lynn smiled at each other. 

“I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact there are three temporal iterations of one individual and it hasn’t generated a tesseract inversion of an event horizon", Velma wondered aloud.

“Far too early in the morning for polysyllabic pontification", Carl grumbled as he slurped his coffee. 

“Where’s our missing member of the Vertigo-ers?”, Marcie inquired.

A dining chair was swung up to the open side of the table. “Hola!”, Vaggie grinned. She wore a white tank top dress with two black ‘X' marks over her modest bosom, one solid grey stocking, one grey and pale rose, with fingerless over-the-elbow gloves.

“Speak of the devil, and they doth appear”, Kolchak recited warily. 

Gwendolyn gently elbowed him in the ribs. “Be nice.”

“I’m just not used to a demon not trying to turn me into cutlets", Kolchak pointed out.

“Relax, Carl. Your soul is safe from me", Vaggie winked. “Double order of scrambled eggs with habanero cheese, chili Verde on the side, please”, she ordered.

“So called it that Vaggie was a demon", Danny deadpanned.

“Two redheads, Fenton?”, Vaggie grinned. “You must like living dangerously.”

Wendy’s phone chirped, announcing the arrival of a text message. 

Velma held up her teacup. “Marcie and I have an announcement…”

“Congratulations!”, Carl cheered.

“Not that kind of announcement!”, Marcie stuck out her tongue.

“We’ve decided to move to Gravity Falls!”, Velma continued as if no-one had interrupted. “Marcie and I talked it over, and I’m going to re-open Mystery Ink! We’re looking at locations today!” Cheers of congratulations sounded around the table.

“You know, I think that's a fine idea", Max agreed. “As small towns go, it’s got everything you need. In fact, I’m thinking about retiring. For good. Well, semi-retiring. Maybe open a fix-it shop.”

“Got room for a wayward teen granddaughter?”, Lynn inquired .

“Speaking of moving, I’ve got to find a permanent place soon”, Danny announced. “I can’t stay in the motel forever.”

Gwendolyn smirked. “I’ll sign a lease and we can split the rent, Fenton. You’ll hardly see me anyway. I’ll be busy keeping Kolchak out of trouble.”

Wendy reached over Danny’s shoulders to get Lynn's attention. “What’s your schedule today, sexy?”

“I’m on at six. Why?”

“Mabel needs us.”

“What’s up?”, Lynn asked.

“Unicorn hunt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of another one!
> 
> Stay tuned for further adventures! Same Scooby Time, same Falls channel!


End file.
